Finally.......

Granny can watch her grandchildren navigate the landlocked speedboat. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

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.

First time in 15 years

Seventh Annual Crosswinds 5K; about 39:10.

50 pounds overweight, 64 years old, had a stroke, bog-slow, but made it.
No stops.
Crosswinds is a church, what passes for a tub-thumping mega-church in Canandaigua; about 1,500-2,000 (not 15,000) arm-waving, tearful members; all honkies, except for the token blacks.
There was a giant carpeted auditorium — not a dance-hall (or was it). It had a stage with an ebony baby-grand and a black Yamaha drum-set.
And a giant sound-equalizer panel in the back.
Plus a gigantic dark-windowed control-room overlooking the entire vast sweeping arena.
Is this what zealot religion has become?
I threaded a long glistening hallway past daycare and the youth “Box.” (???????????)
“We love K-12,” a large sign trumpeted.
“That guy never had a snowball’s chance in Hell,” I overheard.
Never heard talk like that at Immanual — ECBC either.
I stepped into the giant auditorium to pick up my registration.
“Boom-chicka; boom-chicka; boom-chicka!”
“Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous,” some bloated Granny screamed from a booth in the corridor. “Your perm tells me ya need help!”
Giant wall-mounted TV-screens, about 10 feet by 15, were up on the walls above the stage.
Over-and-over: Trombley Tires, J.J. Wolfe Insurance Agency, John Schuppenhauer, Attorney; followed by Canandaigua Braves and “Thank you for participating in the Crosswinds 5K.”
(Canandaigua’s high-school is Canandaigua Academy; and its sports-teams are the “Braves” — which got them in trouble with the local native-American community.)
A lady was hunched over her laptop — a God-fearing PC of course. Jesus used a PC. I’m told the King James Version was entirely done on a PC, not some “silly MAC.”
I noticed my Houghton tee-shirt was next up for wearing.
“NOTHING DOING,” I said. “I ain’t wearin’ that thing to Crosswinds.”
“That’s all I need. Get accosted by some babbling zealot.”
“Oh, you went to Houghton?” they’d ask. “That must mean you’re one of us, to get snatched up in the Rapture.”
“How come you’re still here?” I’d ask.
I stepped outside into an adjacent parking-lot.
“SCREECH; ba-BOOM; ROAR,” on the P-A.
Sounded like Howard Stern, I thought, but it could be Christian-Rock.
When I was a kid, rock was of-the-devil.
We racers gravitated onto the highway, and milled around.
Finally a shrill police-whistle blasted; “I guess that’s it,” someone said.
We all began running.
It took about 10 seconds to cross the start-line. Not too bad; once at the Lilac 10K it took over a minute; that was 5,000 runners — Crosswinds about 300.
I felt awful — slower than at Boughton Park. First mile 12:12; which is dreadful — I used to run a mile in about 6:30.
I was running with all the cripples and layabouts. Passed a few, but only because I kept going.
(I passed and repassed a guy that ran like Jack, although probably better. He looked tike a pig-out menu graduate. Passed me at a good clip, and then stalled and walked for a while. —Better than Jack because: -a) he wasn’t as heavy, and -b) not full of ankle-pins.
I finally passed him for good.)
People were at each corner, and the road-crossings. “Lookin’ good,” they’d shout. Clap-clap-clap. “Not much further.”
The last mile had a long uphill; haven’t done a Christian race that didn’t have a killer hill in it. (“We are climbing Jacob’s Ladder......”)
Our toughest race was at Houghton in the ‘80s; a 10K.
We drove there in the GTI, which was ‘83.
The Houghton campus is on a level area about 70 feet above the floor of the Genesee valley.
The race-start was at the old athletic-field, which is another 50 feet above the campus.
So down to the valley-floor we raced; then back up the west side of the Genesee valley.
Up and up we went; at least two-three miles of constant uphill.
It was so horrible I had to stop. —Crosswinds was a hill but no stop; much shorter.
Then at Houghton we turned north cross-country, and straight down the center of the grassy runway of the Houghton International Airport.
All I could think was “I sure hope that guy isn’t on short-final with his Apache.”
Then back down to the campus, threading the neighborhoods where all the faculty lived.
We were cheered on by old Coach Wells; who was retired by then, and probably now dead.
Finally back to the old athletic-field, to finish on the old quarter-mile track.
Some googley-eyed zealot nerd tried to trip me as I began passing — I’ve never had that happen in another race; and I’ve ran plenty. Ya don’t do that to The Keed; no matter how superior and Godly ya are.
I brushed him aside and passed — beat the zealot — he was doin’ a Bellachukka move, or The Crybaby Little Twerp.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

RE: “zealot religion......” —All my siblings are tub-thumping born-again Christians, and since I’m not, I’m reprehensible.

“Immanual” Baptist Church was our family’s church in Wilmington, Del., when I was a teenager. “ECBC” is Erlton Community Baptist Church, in Erlton, N.J., where we lived before Wilmington. Our family attended there when I was a child; and my father helped found it. The word “Hell” was profanity in both churches, and verboten. —Both churches were zealous.

RE: “Your perm tells me ya need help!” —My blowhard brother-in-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who badmouths everything I do or say, noisily claims I have the wrong haircut, because I have a permanent (“perm”) instead of a proper $5 chop-job from HairCrafters.

RE: “some ‘silly MAC........’” —All my siblings use PCs (Windows Personal-Computers), but since I use a MAC, I’m reprehensible.

“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I didn’t graduate with their approval. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college. —I have a Houghton tee-shirt. Houghton is in the Genesee river-valley.

“The Rapture” is the Second-Coming of Christ; when all Christians are snatched up into Heaven.

RE: “Christian-rock.......” —I am loudly excoriated because I can’t make sense of Christian-rock. To me that’s an oxymoron. Rock-n-Roll music was sinful when I was a child. Now it’s “Shake your booty for Jesus!”

The “Lilac 10K” is a popular 10K footrace held every year in Rochester as a part of the Lilac Festival. 10K is 6.2 miles (5K is 3.1).

Nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin” as in “OW”) Park is where I run and we walk our dog.

“Jack” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston. He eats too much, and weighs over 250 pounds; and noisily claims I should eat like him. He broke his ankles once, and they were repaired with steel pins.

We had a 1983 Volkswagen Rabbit “GTI;” a hot-rod.

RE: “Old athletic-field......” —Houghton now has a new athletic facility, north of the campus. The “old athletic-field” has been semi-retired.

RE: “I sure hope that guy isn’t on short-final with his Apache......” —When I was at Houghton in the early ‘60s, a guy delivered his daughter to college in his twin-engine Piper Apache. “Short-final” is the landing approach near the airstrip. Houghton only had a single grass-strip, but we called it the “Houghton International Airport.”

“Coach Wells” was the Athletic-Director at Houghton when I was there. All persons in the Athletic Department were called “Coach.”

“The Keed” is me.

“Bellachukka” is Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots football team, who’s been accused of cheating. The “Little Twerp” is Jeff Gordon of NASCAR. My blowhard brother-in-Boston calls him that, and also calls him a “crybaby.”

FireFox update

Yesterday morning (Thursday, August 28, 2008) FireFox (“Fox-Fire”) updated for at least the tenth time.
I installed FireFox some time ago; a free download.
I installed it for three reasons:
—1) My friend Charlie Gardiner had it on his PC, and said it was better than Microsoft’s Internet-Explorer. (Although he codes his web-site for the vast majority of Grannies that still use Internet-Explorer.)
—2) My blog-site was suggesting FireFox instead of Internet-Explorer, and Internet-Explorer wasn’t displaying their “add-picture” icon (although I still have to configure for IE users, since IE misreads my HTML).
—3) The Famblee-site was gonna no longer support Netscape, and was suggesting FireFox or Flock as alternatives.
So at least once a month I’d get the “do ya wanna update” message, followed by “FireFox will update with the next fire-up” if I hold off.
Updates are free and automatic — it’s just a browser, and was free to start with.
But this was the first update that changed the appearance of the browser-display.
Previous updates have been background; e.g. security updates, etc.
Gone are the turgid old Gates rectangular buttons, replaced by the glowing ovoid buttons of Apple’s OS-X.
(Of course, Vista may have this too — I wouldn’t put it past Microsoft and its cronies to copy an inspired idea.
The Apple graphical-interface got copied, as did the mouse; another inspired Apple idea.)
The update maintained everything from the past; like my bookmarks and homepage (which of course is the Curve web-cam).
Every time FireFox updates I get a “newest features” page.
I immediately zap that, which means many of the 89 bazilyun bells and whistles FireFox has aren’t used.
All I use it for mainly is its browser-function; and I don’t have to type in a web-site, since I usually have it as a bookmark.
I have an entire toolbar folder of Google bookmarks.
But I did notice it’s now asking if I wanna restore all my open tabs for the next fire-up.
Nice idea — no longer do I hafta open a MyWay tab.
I also noticed that a copy/paste of a web-address is no longer the “Geneva” font. It’s whatever font I was using, usually “charcoal” — this saves dorking around.
The Famblee web-site is “Flock,” an entirely different browser. So my Flock homepage is the FlagOut log-in page. (My old Netscape homepage was the FlagOut front page, but that was set up before MyFamblee initiated the log-in requirement.)

“FireFox” is a web-browser, as are “Flock,” “Internet-Explorer” (“IE”) and “Netscape.”

RE: “Fox-Fire.........” —My siblings are all mispronouncing “FireFox” as a put-down.

“Charlie Gardiner” and I both graduated Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I didn’t graduate with their approval. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college. (We both graduated in the Class of 1966.)

The “Famblee-site” is our family’s web-site at MyFamily.com. Our site is named “FlagOut,” 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.)

Bill “Gates” is the CEO of Microsoft. “OS-X” is the current Apple-Computer operating system. A “PC” is the usual Windows computer (I drive an Apple Macintosh, much to the loud disapproval of all my nay-saying siblings, who drive PCs).

“Vista” is the newest version of Microsoft “Windows.” (A response to Apple’s OS-X.)

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

Monthly Calendar-Report for August 2008

(At long last, I am able to fly this Monthly Calendar Report, at almost the end of the month.
It’s been done since the beginning of the month, but I haven’t had time to fly it.)

Norfolk Southern freight on the storied Norfolk & Western main in Hemphill, W. Va. (Photo by Carlos Fink.)

My best August 2008 calendar is my Norfolk Southern Employees calendar.
It depicts the fountainhead of the Norfolk Southern empire, the mighty Norfolk & Western main across Virginia and into West Virginia.
Norfolk & Western was a difficult railroad, but it had the advantage of serving the incredible Pocahontas coal region.
Railroads do extremely well shipping coal, and rivers of coal were being shipped to tidewater in Norfolk.
If I am correct, Norfolk & Western had to cross three mountain ranges in the Appalachians, but was the conduit for all that coal.
So much coal was being shipped, a competing railroad, the Virginian, was built, with easier grades.
But it was eventually merged into Norfolk & Western.
The mainline of Norfolk & Western is torturous, and peppered with 28 tunnels.
The old Pennsy only had a few.
Norfolk & Western traverses some of the most difficult terrain in the country, but there was all that coal to move.
Now railroad technology has advanced beyond the old Norfolk & Western main. The tunnels aren’t high enough to clear double-stacks.
It’s the same problem that hamstrung the old Pennsy main; but they only had a few tunnels.
Viola! The Heartland Project; raising the clearances of all the old Norfolk & Western tunnels.
Like raising tunnel-clearances across Pennsylvania, the Heartland Project is a joint effort of public and private entities.
Norfolk Southern is also the owner of the old Pennsy main, but that’s shipping to Philadelphia and New York City.
Norfolk wants a piece of the action. —It’s the same economic desire that prompted the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and eventually Pennsy, after the incredible success of the Erie Canal.
Norfolk Southern is the private participant, because the Heartland Project gives them another outlet for double-stacks.
But that’s a side-benefit. There’s still all that coal to ship. —Coal-hoppers aren’t as high as double-stacks, which need over 20 feet of clearance.
Norfolk Southern is a December, 1990 merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway, the strongest partner being Norfolk & Western. NS has since merged other lines, including the old Pennsy main from Conrail; so that now NS is a major player in east-coast railroading. Norfolk & Western had also merged a few lines in the midwest, like Nickel Plate and Wabash. Southern served the entire southeast.

Classic 1932 Ford Hi-Boy roadster hot-rod with Flat-head engine. (Photo by Peter Vincent.)

The August entry of my 1932 Ford “Deuce” calendar is a classic of classics, a 1932 Hi-Boy roadster done in the old style, popular in the late ‘40s.
About the only thing wrong is the color, a stock ‘56 Ford color.
Plus that teensy little roadster top; which I think is the stock lines. —The windshield appears to be chopped.
The car was photographed at Bonneville Salt Flats, which has an awesomely beautiful and strange landscape.
Best of all is it has the venerable V8 Flat-Head Ford Motor, the basis of hot-rodding.
It’s Old Henry’s V8 introduced in the 1932 Model-year, although the motor is a 1952 Mercury.
It has a ‘39 Ford three-speed tranny, and an early Halibrand rear.
Four-speed trannies are late ‘50s, but just about everything on this car is prior to 1953.
Also notable are the double-sided wide-whites; that’s whitewall on both sides of the tire.
As time advanced in the ‘50s, whitewalls got narrower and narrower.
Now you can’t even get whitewalls, and I’ve even seen black-painted custom alloy wheels.
But when first introduced, whitewalls were white the whole side of the tire.
They symbolized extravagance and money.
But it’s the Flat-head that stands out.
Backyard mechanics tinkered and bent incredible horsepower out of them.
An entire industry grew up supplying hot-rod parts for the Flat-head.
This car has double carburetors and exhaust headers — all to make it breathe better.
And what appear to be custom-cast aluminum cylinder heads (Navarro), that increased compression-ratio. Stock heads lack finning.
But even hot-rodded, the Flat-head was no match for the Small-Block Chevy.
Thankfully that Flat-head wasn’t swapped out for a Small-Block, as most were.

At long last. (Photo by John Dziobko.)

At last, the K4 Pacific.
My All-Pennsy color calendar has one for August, the icon of icons.
I should note at first that the K4 Pacific was Pennsy’s standard steam passenger engine for years, and that gorgeous red keystone number-plate on the front smokebox door became the first symbolic icon, although at that time it wasn’t thought of as such.
The K4 Pacific wasn’t that advanced — it’s a middle teens design.
But as a Pacific it’s rather large. Many railroads’ Pacifics were only teakettles.
Pennsy never engineered a replacement, but could have — probably should have — had they not been throwing gobs of money at electrification.
Instead of designing a bigger locomotive to handle increased train-weights, they just double-headed K4s.
And they could afford to. Double-heading steam is two engine crews — twice the crew expense. Steamers can’t be MU-ed like diesels.
This engine, #330, is on the turntable at Meadows Engine Terminal in north Jersey, probably in service on the New York & Long Branch, the final stomping ground for many Pennsy passenger engines.
I keep telling people I’m old enough to have witnessed the final days of steam railroading, steam locomotives on the Pennsylvania-Reading (“RED-ing;” not “REED-ing”) Seashore Lines in south Jersey.
My father used to take me trackside in Haddonfield, along the mainline of the PRSL to Atlantic City, and I’ve been a railfan ever since.
My greatest thrill was the onrushing red keystone of a Pennsy K4 or E6.
(And I preferred the E6, which lacked the so-called “beauty-treatment;” which this K4 has. The “beauty-treatment” was to move the headlight from the smokebox-front to the top, and put the generator on the front — and build a platform for servicing that generator. —All to make generator service easier. The K4 also got a cast-steel pilot; the E6 still kept the gorgeous slatted pilot.)
PRSL also used Reading steam, but compared to Pennsy they looked awful; so that red keystone was my indicator.
I was terrified of thunderstorms, but could stand right next to a throbbing, panting steam-engine.
Diesels wide-open are okay, but no match for steam.
In the early ‘90s, I rode behind restored Nickel Plate steamer 765, and ended up crying. That thing was doing 75 mph; rockin’ and rollin’.
Just like the K4s. Stand back! Look out! Comin’ through!

“Lissen, you two.........”

The August entry of my Three Stooges calendar is a quintessential Stooges shot, an outtake of an “all right, you two......”
My first thought was it was an outtake from one of their western flicks, but I don’t think so.
They’re not wearing cowboy garb.
It looks more like they’re being construction-workers.
Larry has a shovel, and Curly is calmly cleaning his fingernails with a giant pickax.
The classic shot of two lazy layabouts dragooned by Moe. “All right you two. We got woik ta do. Why I oughta.......”
Broken from his reverie, Curly utters his infamous “wub-wub-wub-wub!”
Moe pokes Curly in the eyes: “Here, see this?” POINK!
After which Curly scores a few points and says “nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk.....”

1973 454 Corvette. (Photo by Richard Prince.)

I only do the August entry of my All-Corvette calendar because —A) I like the color, and —B) it’s a 454.
The main thing is it’s a 454; were it not for that, I’d be tempted to not run it, despite the color.
The 454 Corvette is one of the most extraordinary Corvettes of all time — also one of the worst.
The 454 motor was monstrously heavy; immensely powerful, but at the expense of balance.
A cast-iron 454 weighed so much it made the front-end plow.
The 454 is a cheap shot: increase the power but unbalance the car.
The Small-Block was a better match. Not as powerful, but easier to drive fast. A 454 Corvette was a handful.
This car is a ‘73.
By then the Corvette was becoming what it is to my friend Tim Belknap: “A car for divorced dentists.”
People were ordering them with air-conditioning, for crying out loud.
That’s hardly a sportscar; more a touring-car.
But at least a Grand Touring car — the Small-Block was still fairly strong. The Big-Block would make it a straight-line monster.
Yet pop the hood on a Big-Block and ya find the same motor that’s in big Chevy trucks.
Hardly the multiple-carbed V12 in a Ferrari, or even the six in a Jag.
Same round air-cleaner found atop the Chevy truck-motor, albeit chromed.
And goose it and it ain’t a high-strung Ferrari or Porsche.
A motor to flash at the drive-in; “My ‘Vette has a 454.”
My brother-in-Boston has a 454 Chevelle, and I drove it once. Rumble-quake. Too much motor in a flimsy old chassis.
I was in awe: “People used to street-race these things. Try to keep it between the lines at 150+ mph.”
Years ago, a team raced 454 Corvettes in SCCA’s A-production class. But the chassis had probably been much-modified to make them handle, and be less scary.

Cat-whiskered GG1 #4839 in 1939 at Washington Union Terminal. (Photo by Otto Perry©.)

The August entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black & white All-Pennsy calendar is “The Federal” entering the throat of Washington Union Terminal in 1939 fronted by GG1 #4839.
GG1 #4839 is painted in the famous five-pinstriped “cat-whisker” scheme pioneered by Raymond Loewy.
The “cat-whisker” scheme was the beginning of Loewy’s storied career with Pennsy, and before Loewy Pennsy was rather moribund. Loewy is a world-famous and influential industrial designer, and Pennsy was only into function, not art.
The first GG1 (#4800) has a riveted car-body, but Loewy convinced Pennsy to go with a welded shell. He also did a few styling fillips; primary of which is the round-topping the end man-doors, so the door tightly surrounded the headlight. #4800 is a rectangle.
The welded-shell GG1 is a stunning success; the prettiest railroad locomotive of all time.
The five-pinstriped “cat-whisker” scheme is also Loewy; much better than the pin-striping Pennsy proposed.
The “cat-whisker” scheme went onto Pennsy diesel locomotives, but was too labor-intensive to paint.
On repainting the Pennsy went to a much wider single-stripe scheme, which looked okay, but wasn’t the “cat-whiskers.”
#4839 also has the “Futura” lettering, which essentially means without serifs.
Most GG1s originally used the same lettering that’s on the K4 tender; but “Futura” was an added variation.
The single-stripe repaint scheme had much larger “Pennsylvania” lettering, and a much larger PRR-keystone, as opposed to the smaller number-plate keystone.
I remember being at Claymont station in northern Delaware in the early ‘60s, when what is now known as the Northeast Corridor was still Pennsy; although electrified as it is now.
Four tracks went through, and I thought the GG1 passenger expresses ran the inside tracks.
Here I am standing trackside next to an outside track, and I hear a GG1 coming.
I set up.
Surprise; it was on the outside track, doing at least 90 mph!
Had I not hooked my arm around a light-standard I woulda been sucked into it — not be here.
That thing was boomin’-and-zoomin’. And it was single-striped.
Greatest railroad locomotive of all time: “Stand back! Look out! Comin’ through!”
(I only saw one cat-whisker GG1.)

For once, the entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar isn’t worth doing.
It’s just the tiny Ryan STM trainer, a classic, I’m sure, but hardly a gorgeous hot-rod.
At least the STM is a low-wing monoplane; “mono” meaning one wing, as opposed to two (a biplane — “BYE-plane”).
But it has cable-braces for the wings, and even the tail-surfaces. And it’s landing-gear is unretractable, although it at least has wheel-pants streamlining.
Little more than a glorified Piper Cub, although at least it’s low-wing. —The Cub was high-wing.
And it appears it’s covering is metal; the Cub was fabric.
I remember seeing some Cubs at the old airport near Airport Circle in Camden, and they had holes in their fabric.
Vandals had punched them through.
Fabric covering was light; but you couldn’t do much with a Cub.
Start doing aerobatics and the wings broke off.
Do that with an STM, and I bet it would break apart too (but maybe not).
It was just a basic trainer; good for little more than takeoffs and landings.
A step above the humble Stearman biplane, which was fabric covered.
But at least the Stearman was sturdy enough to do aerobatics. (Maybe the STM is too.)
At least Ryan made up for it with the Ryan Navion, a hot-rod of early private aviation, although I guess it was a North American Aviation design. (North American is also the fabulous P51 Mustang, and the B25.)
—It was an alternative to the V-tailed Beechcraft Bonanza, another fabulous private airplane; although it took megabucks to own one.
The kind of megabucks that now has private flyers in jets; e.g. the president of Canandaigua National Bank, who’s trying to get the runway lengthened at Canandaigua Airport to allow jets (although it would be small private jets; not jet airliners).

“Main” equals mainline — in this case the mainline of the Norfolk & Western Railroad.

A large portion of Appalachia, particularly in Virginia and West Virginia, is underlied with coal. This area is called the “Pocahontas coal region.”

“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.

“Double-stack” is two trailer containers stacked two high without wheels in so-called “wellcars.” —It’s much more efficient than single containers (or trailers) on flatcars, since it’s two containers per car. It’s the same shipping containers shipped overseas; where they may be stacked three or four high, or even higher if a support deck is under a stack. But “double-stacks” require very high clearance; over 20 feet. Bridges had to be raised, and tunnels made larger.

“Conrail” was a government amalgamation of east-coast railroads that went bankrupt pretty much at the same time as Penn-Central, a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central. Conrail included other bankrupt east-coast railroads, like Erie-Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley; but eventually went private as it became more successful. Conrail has since been broken up, sold to CSX Transportation Industries (railroad) and Norfolk Southern railroad. CSX got mainly the old New York Central routes, and NS got the old PRR routes.

The “Flat-head” was the V8 motor introduced by Ford in the 1932 model-year. It was a side-valve engine with flat cylinder-head castings. Most automobile engines at that time were side-valve like the Flat-head; as opposed to what many are now: overhead-valve with the valving in the cylinder-head. Many lawnmower engines are still flat-head side-valvers. The advantage to a side-valver is the valving mechanism isn’t turned 180 degrees. But the cylinder-heads of a side-valver are much less efficient than overhead valve. The paths the intake and exhaust charges take are much less direct. —But side-valvers were easier to engineer and manufacture in the early days; so side-valvers were the norm until the ‘50s. (The Flat-head lasted through the 1953 model-year.) Being a V8, the Flat-head was the choice of hot-rodders. Plus it responded well to souping up. But overhead-valving became the norm, particularly Chevrolet’s Small-Block, which was introduced in the 1955 model-year.

“Tranny” equals transmission.

“Chopped” means cutting a portion of framing and glass out of the windshield-sides to lower the top of the windshield. (This was also frequently done to the entire top — cut sections out of the window-posts, so the whole top sat lower.)

“Bonneville Salt-flats,” next to Great Salt Lake in Utah, is a vast open flat area where top-speed runs can be made.

A “Halibrand rear” is a special modification of the Ford rear-axle made at that time by “Halibrand.” It improved performance.

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” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. 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.

Small railroad steam locomotives are called “teakettles.”

The “E6” was the E6 Atlantic, a large 4-4-2. They were first done in 1910, with a requirement to have less drivers (i.e. be 4-4-2 instead of 4-6-2 [a Pacific]). It was the main Pennsylvania Railroad passenger steam-locomotive, until replaced by the larger and more powerful K4 Pacific. (The first K4 was built in 1914.) —Pennsy had earlier and smaller Atlantics, e.g. the E2 and E3. One E6 remains, #460, at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

“765” is a restored Nickel Plate Railroad steam-locomotive; 2-8-4, a “Berkshire.” It is owned and operated (and was restored) by Fort Wayne Historical Society, for steam-locomotive railfan excursion service, and is the best restored steam-locomotive in service, primarily because it can be run like designed: at high speed. (“Nickel Plate” is the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, called the “Nickel Plate” long ago by a New York Central executive because it was so competitive. The railroad renamed itself the “Nickel Plate.” Norfolk & Western Railroad bought the Nickel Plate years ago, and N&W has since merged with Southern Railway, to become Norfolk Southern. Nickel Plate never actually attained New York city; it stopped at Buffalo.)

“Tim Belknap” (“BELL-nap”) was an editor, and fellow car-guy, at the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. He recently retired too.

“Camden” is Camden, N.J., across from Philadelphia in south Jersey. I was born in Camden. Philadelphia’s first airport was the one at Airport Circle in Camden, until the DC3, which needed longer runways — and there was nowhere to expand. That airport no longer exists.

.....At the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA

—1) CHECKIN
(Much to the chagrin of the almighty Bluster-King, who tires of explanations, and goes bonkers if there is one, HE AIN’T THE ONLY ONE THAT READS THIS HERE MATERIAL. There are others; e.g., other famblee-members, the dreaded ne’er-do-wells, and people out there in blog-reader land; if any. I feel I should explain things a little for them, so there aren’t any questions, or confusion.)
The YMCA has issued bar-coded membership keytags.
When ya arrive, ya swipe your keytag under a laser reader.
What usually happens is that the reader acknowledges with a celebratory sound.
So I dutifully swipe my keytag.
“WHAM; Crash; tinkle!” (Sound of breaking glass.)
“Um, sir. Couldja do your keytag again? I don’t know what happened, but it didn’t register.”
“Yeah; it sounded like the roof collapsed!” I shouted.
The revenge of Bill Gates. The YMCA’s ‘pyooter-system is Windoze.

—2) SMALL WORLD
(This didn’t actually happen, but it coulda. I don’t generally jaw with anyone, as my speech can go funny.)
“I recognize you, but I don’t know from where,” I said.
“I do now: mighty Weggers!”
“Huhhhhhhhh???????”
“Wegmans; the Canandaigua Wegmans,” I said.
“Yep; sometimes I stock; and other times I supervise the front-end,” he said.
“Greatest store in the entire universe — even better than Wal*Mart. Ya never see Wal*Mart at the top of the Fortune ‘100 best places to work.’”

The “almighty Bluster-King” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say.

The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.

“‘Pyooter-system” is computer-system. “Windoze” is the MAC pronunciation of Microsoft Windows. “Bill Gates” is the president of Microsoft.

RE: “My speech can go funny......” —I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech.

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

My tub-thumping siblings are always saying Wal*Mart is the greatest store in the universe, and that I am reprehensible because I don’t agree.

Every year, Fortune Magazine lists the best 100 places to work nationwide. Wegmans is usually in the top five; and one year was the top.

Deposit-Return

I’m at the mighty Canandaigua Weggers two days ago (Sunday, August 24, 2008), fixin’ to buy groceries.
I have two cans to return for deposit; one actually a beer-can found up the street.
I stride into the can-return room; lined with eight combination can/plastic return machines, and three glass bottle machines.
It’s not crowded — no NASCAR-dads exchanging 89 bazilyun Bud cans in shopping-carts big as a Buick. (“Get cracking, LJ. Daddy needs help. Hup-hup!”)
I insert my cans: ka-chink; ka-chink!
“Press button for receipt.”
Alarms sound, lights flash; it appears Rapture has occurred.
“Printer malfunction!” Call staff!”
Are you kidding?
I walked away.
I ain’t gonna alert the staff for a 10¢ can-refund.
“No tickey,” I told the guy behind me with 89 bazilyun Bud cans and his son.

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

“Get cracking,” and “Hup-hup” are things my siblings say to people they decide are lazy no-good no-account layabouts, like me.

“Rapture” is the Second Coming of Christ, wherein all Christians are taken up into Heaven, and the world is left to sinners. (“In case of Rapture, this van will be driverless.”)

Back to nature

Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.

282-Alumni Picnic.

And so concludes the Fourth Annual 282-Alumni Picnic at Ellison Park (“EL-ih-sin”).
“282” is Local 282 of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union (“What’s ‘ah-two?’”), my old bus-union at Rochester’s Regional Transit Service.
The “Alumni” are retirees of Transit who happened to be members of Local 282.
Transit itself used to hold an annual picnic for all Transit employees. I went to one once, and it too was at Ellison Park. A bus was on-hand for display — for kids, I guess.
But Transit stopped doing that; perhaps because so many of its employees were members of Local 282, automatically making them freeloading ne’er-do-wells.
No matter the members of 282 were providing transit-service; we were in the way of the fat-cats collecting their bloated paychecks jawing at the coffee-machine they got free coffee from.
Ellison Park is a fairly large county park on Rochester’s east side, in the Irondequoit Creek Valley.
It divides essentially into two halves on either side of a highway.
The southern half is party-land; lodges galore for reserved parties.
The northern half is more wild; not as many party-lodges.
The 282-Alumni picnic was in the southern half.
Not many were at the picnic.

Irondequoit Bay and Irondequoit Creek Valley were once the outlet of the Genesee River, but glacial deposits blocked that.
The Genesee now takes a different course which Rochester grew up around.
The Genesee carved a cataract like the Niagara, and could be harnessed for water-power since it dropped so much.
Rochester was at first the “Flour City,” because it milled the deluge of flour from the Genesee Valley.
The Genesee Valley was the nation’s first breadbasket. Wheat was shipped up to Rochester on the Genesee Valley Canal (long abandoned), milled in Rochester, then shipped east on the Erie Canal.
But we all know that’s hooey. Rochester is Kodak-land, and began to fall apart with the passing of Mother-Dear.
That glacier-stuff is hooey too. Devil-talk!
Apparently the glacier dumped tons of sand where Ellison Park is now, and Irondequoit Creek carved through it.
Most of the hills are giant sand-piles, and in one spot the sand is exposed, eroding the hillside.
I used to climb it with Casey, our first dog.
I also ran hundreds of times there with Casey, although on the north part.
Casey caught many squirrels there — the “red tornado.”
—First we had to find the picnic.
“It’s over here,” I said, after parking our van. “I smell the heavy aroma of terbaccy-smoke.”
Most at Transit smoked.
When Transit made their Drivers’ Room non-smoking, they had to put in a lounge for smokers.
We non-smokers called it the “Cancer-Ward.”
The smoke would be so thick you couldn’t see.
We walked up and had Scarlett with us. I was greeted by John Blocchi (“BLOCK-eee”), the union recording-secretary, and still a Transit mechanic.
“Oh, what a pretty dog,” some said. “I used to have an Irish-Setter once; pretty, but too much.”
After a few minutes we wandered down a trail, but it disappeared in a swamp.
Back to the Lodge.
“I’m tryin’ to find a john,” I said. “I’m told I have a ‘prostrate’ problem.” (No matter getting to the park took over an hour on a pot of coffee.)
An older lady directed me to a Porta-John; the single Porta-Potty that served the entire picnic.
No latch on the self-closing spring door. Just hope no-one strides in. Plus the Porta-John was in the sun — an oven. (Where was the self-declared Porta-John expert to air condition that Porta-Potty?)
Finally we set out on a long hike — the whole idea with Scarlett, plus I ain’t much of a talker.
All the way out to the road, across, and into the north part, in hopes of finding some of our old hangouts.
“I’m not sure I can do this,” I said; about 3-4 miles.
But I know from experience I usually can do more than I think.
“I doubt if any of your Transit cohorts could,” Linda observed.
So we continued.
“I remember this path,” Linda said.
The racket of party-land was no longer audible; we were on the far side of a high sand-hill.
A deery scampered into an adjacent swamp, and it was hold-on-for-dear-life.
“We skied this path instead of the road, because the road was in sunlight, and would melt. The path was in shade.”
The path was well chopped up by horses from nearby Heberle (“Eb-er-LEE”) Stables.
And ya had to thread the steaming-piles — memories of the famblee-site.
The path emptied into a big grassy field wedged between the hill and the creek, so we walked along the creek back toward the highway-crossing.
At a place where an old unused road-bridge crossed the creek, a gang of 89 bazilyun dogs was frolicking in the water, retrieving soggy tennis-balls thrown by their owners.
“I bet this is the ‘Big-Dog Play Group,’” Linda said.
“Not on the porch either,” I said.
“They’re trying to set up a fenced Dog-Park in here, where dogs can run loose.”
“Yeah,” I said; “and who cleans up all the poop?”
We headed back toward the road-crossing to the southern part; back to the racket.
“A singer in a smoky room, A smell of wine and cheap perfume, For a smile they can share the night, It goes on and on and on and on. Don’t stop believin’, Hold on to the feelin’..........”
Well, that’s better than “Slide to the right; Boom-Chikka. Slide to the left; Boom-Chikka. Party-down; Boom-Chikka. Let’s party-down; Boom-Chikka. Get funky-down!”
“Boy, I sure am glad that ain’t my 282 brothers,” I thought.
Still on the north side we passed a Briggs & Stratton generator thumping lazily away.
“So this is ‘back-to-nature,’” I think. “Can’t go back to nature without hydrocarbons.”
We crossed the highway back into party-land; racket louder and louder.
“We must be coming back to the Alumni picnic,” Linda observed. “There’s a lady in a walker.”
Yep; I married a gallows-humor — a shark to get the Bluster-Boy all flustered.
‘Course, it ain’t hard.

PICTURE IDs
—1) “Blocchi” has already been mentioned.
—2) “Bill Lewis” was hired some time after me; and I never knew him that well. Just the name and the face — we never struck up a friendship.
—3) “Prentice” is Dick Prentice (“PRENT-iss”); he started a few months before me. I rear-ended Prentice once after a night-time lineup — about 5 mph. “WHAM!” —Slid on ice; I asked him if he appreciated the love-tap.
We were both driving 12s, the old GM fish-bowl, but only about 30 feet long. As such they were easier to drive; didn’t need as much swing.
But I hated ‘em. By the time we were drivin’ ‘em, they were JUNK; worn-out douchebags.
Both our buses had chromed metal bumpers, but they were already so banged up, we couldn’t see if the impact had caused any damage.
So we didn’t call it in. Risking weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
—4) “Frenchy” is René Routhier (ROW-thee-yay). I guess he got the “Frenchy” nickname because he was French. He started a few years before me, and at stroke-time still had the beautiful ‘56 Chevy post he had hot-rodded as a teenager.
Cost him about $200, motorless. He put a 350-Chevy in it.
“Still got that ‘56 Chevy?” I asked.
“Sold it. Some guy bought it, and immediately listed it in Hemmings. Now it’s in Illinois.”
Like me, “Frenchy” was a bus-driver, and enjoyed the bus-line I hated, the 300 — mostly because -a) ya always got a 12, and -b) it threaded every driveway and parking-lot along the route.
“One time I was stuck behind you in my car, and you were driving slowly out Spencerport Road on the 3 with a 12. I couldn’t get by until ya turned up Long Pond. And that 12 stank!

Others in attendance not pictured are: -a) 282 Business-Agent Frank Falzone(“Fowl-ZONE”), and -b) union prez Joe Carey (“Carry”); otherwise known as “dumb and dumber” among Transit managers.
Well, I don’t think so. It’s those two against a staff of hundreds — managers that refuse to implement the decisions of an arbitrator, unless the Union sues. And that’s despite originally agreeing to abide by the decisions of an arbitrator.
It’s a bucking bronco, and I think “dumb and dumber” do fine.
“That dog one of the ones I snuck ya outta Park Ridge Hospital to see?” asked Frank.
“Nope! Them dogs are long-gone. This is number six; they were numbers two and three. We had two dogs after them” (Sabrina and Killian).
“That was probably the most memorable event in my recovery.”
“You and me both,” Frank said. “I felt like a naughty school-kid.”
Frank had snuck me out into the frigid hospital parking-lot to see our dogs Tracy and Sassy, who were in the so-called soccer-mom minivan. I was still in a wheelchair.
Frank was the guy who called the head-honcho at Transit a Bolshevik.
“Mindless management minions,” Frank said. That was my line.
Frank was the one that came up with “Deputy Dog;” I changed it to “Dippity Dawg.”
We had a jolly good time with the 282-News.

Others in attendance not pictured were Matt Shaw, Frank Randisi, Tom Hyder and Radical Dude.
-a) “Matt Shaw” is an ex-Marine on the union Executive Board — who engineered and proposed a union ‘pyooter system that got voted down by blowhards.
“Just keep pushin’, Matt. This union is still in the 20th century. No ‘pyooter at the union-office at all. Everything I got is electronic any more. These guys have no clue!”
-b) “Frank Randisi” (“Ran-DEE-zee”) is vice-prez of the Alumni, and is the one who suggested I was being billed too much by Q-Dental. The Alumni have negotiated lower pricing with Q-Dental.
“Didja get that straightened out, Hughsey?” he asked.
“Sentcha an e-mail, Frank. Even a jpeg of the kerrected form.”
“I never check my e-mail,” he said.
-c) Tom Hyder (“HIDE-er”), the Alumni Recording-Secretary, is the main reason the Alumni exists. His fingers are in everything — the main sparkplug.
-d) “Radical Dude” (my nickname) is Ray Dunbar (“DONE-bar”), the union vice-prez. He still drives bus; and I hope is the guy who succeeds Carey — who is retirement-age.
Dunbar (not a union-official at that time) and I were the main instigators of the dreaded “282-News;” and we used to pass it out at 4 a.m.; 400 copies, one of which went directly to the head-honcho’s office. He also circulated it to local politicos, who were calling up the PR-honcho to ask what was going on. We were running circles around that guy. Drove him crazy.

Another not pictured was “Smokestack Merkel” (“MER-kel” — Jerry Merkel); who smokes heavily and lacks all his teeth. —So that when he smiles, all ya see is gums.
But Merkel was the guy who accompanied us to Buffalo to see their light-rail system; a giant boondoggle that cost millions (primarily because it’s a subway bored through the dolomite rock of the Niagara Escarpment) and is only lightly used.
Merkel is also the one who proposed a giant Rochester rail-transit system, and got laughed out of a Rochester-Genesee-Regional-Transportation-Authority (RGRTA) board-meeting. The RGRTA was mainly fat-cats who thought bus-drivers, like Merkel, were utterly stupid.
I never thought his heavy-rail proposal would work for Rochester, but light rail might have. Them fat-cats were the ones that were stupid — with gas now at $4.00 per gallon. A transit-rail corridor still exists from Henrietta, but it’s partially obliterated.

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.

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.

“What’s ‘ah-two?’” is something my mother asked seeing my ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) button.

RE: “Automatically making them freeloading ne’er-do-wells....” —My all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, noisily claims bus-drivers do nothing — and since I was a bus-driver, I am reprehensible.

RE: “Rochester is Kodak-land, and began to fall apart with the passing of Mother-Dear.....” —“Mother-Dear” is my deceased mother. We used to call her “Motor-Drive.” She took so many pictures with her InstaMatic, we used to say she was inflating Kodak stock.

RE: “That glacier-stuff is hooey too. Devil-talk!” —All my siblings are tub-thumping Bible-believing born-again Christians, and claim the Earth is only 6,000 years old. I don’t, so therefore am a disgusting affront to their self-proclaimed greatness.

We’ve had six dogs: “Casey” was the first; “Tracy” and “Sassy” (together) the second and third; “Sabrina” and “Killian” (together) the fourth and fifth; and “Scarlett” is the sixth — all Irish-Setters. Our last three have been rescue-dogs.

RE: “I’m told I have a ‘prostrate’ problem.” —My all-knowing, macho brother-in-Boston noisily claims every time I use the bathroom I have a “prostrate” problem. Actually, the gland is the “prostate;” but he noisily claims “prostrate” is how it’s spelled. He keeps telling me I should have it checked; unable to understand that I have already. I hit a urologist every six months, and -a) a while ago I had a biopsy; no cancer, and -b) about a year ago we went around-and-around at the Urologist about whether I go too much. I was told to not worry.

My brother-in-Boston claims to be a Porta-John expert; saying he majored in Porta-Johns in college, because that’s where the money is.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

A “deery” equals a deer.

RE: “Ya had to thread the steaming-piles — memories of the famblee-site.....” —Our family has a web-site which I call the “famblee-site.” We lob “steaming-piles” (horse-pucky) at each other on it.

RE: “Not on the porch either.....” —My brother-in-Boston is always telling me “get back on the porch,” if I can’t play with the big dogs.

“A singer in a smoky room, A smell of wine and cheap perfume, For a smile they can share the night, It goes on and on and on and on. Don’t stop believin’, Hold on to the feelin’..........” is Journey during the ‘80s.

RE: “A shark to get the Bluster-Boy all flustered......” —The “Bluster-Boy” is my all-knowing macho brother-from-Boston. He refers to my wife and I as bloodthirsty “sharks;” primarily because we tease him.

RE: “A night-time lineup......” —At night all the buses would line up, elephant-style, downtown, to allow passengers to transfer. Few buses were on the road after 9 p.m., and none after 12:30 a.m.

“The old GM fish-bowl” is the GM TDH “New Look” Series introduced in 1959. They were called “fish-bowls” because of their huge curved windshield. We had many when I started, and our 1200s (1966) were shorter wheelbase.

RE: “So we didn’t call it in.....” —If an accident wasn’t called in, we could be fired.

“Post” is the nickname for a two-door sedan.

The “350-Chevy” was the largest displacement of the vaunted Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 motor. —The “Small-Block” 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” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. 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 Small-Block was an immensely successful hot-rod motor.

“Hemmings” is a classic-car magazine that lists classic-cars for sale.

After my stroke I was in “Park Ridge Hospital’s” rehabilitation unit. Falzone, etc., came to visit.

“The so-called soccer-mom minivan” is our 1993 Chevrolet Astrovan, since traded. My brother-in-Boston badmouthed it because it wasn’t a Hummer.

The “282-News” was a voluntary union newsletter I did during my final year at Transit before the stroke. I was the editor; and did it in Microsoft Word on our computer.

“Q-Dental” is the dental service that Transit retirees use.

“Light-rail” is essentially trolley-cars; self-powered cars (usually by electricity through overhead trolley-wire) that ride on track. “Heavy-rail” is trains.

“Rochester-Genesee-Regional-Transportation-Authority” is the authority that runs Transit — a state authority. It holds monthly board-meetings.

Good old Internet-Explorer

Every Christmas I send out train Christmas-cards.
It’s something I’ve done for years — my 81-year-old Aunt Betty, the only remaining Connor spawn, says she looks forward to it.
I’ve always gotten the cards from Leanin Tree in Colorado; a place that sells way more than train cards — more than Christmas-cards.
I’ve always been partial to the Pennsylvania Railroad, of course. I was always hornswoggled by that red keystone.
Many of my cards have had the GG1 on them; the greatest railroad locomotive of all time.
Thankfully, I saw quite a few GG1s. I have GG1 #4896 as my computer wallpaper.
I remember being at Claymont station in northern Delaware in the early ‘60s, when what is now known as the Northeast Corridor was still Pennsy; although electrified as it is now.
Four tracks went through, and I thought the GG1 passenger expresses ran the inside tracks.
Here I am standing trackside next to an outside track, and I hear a GG1 coming.
I set up.
Surprise; it was on the outside track, doing at least 90 mph!
Had I not hooked my arm around a light-standard I woulda been sucked into it — not be here.
That thing was boomin’-and-zoomin’.
Greatest railroad locomotive of all time: “Stand back! Look out! Comin’ through!”
For years I ordered cards through the mail.
But the past four years or so have been online.
So I figured I’d try it last night (Friday, August 22, 2008) with my FireFox, which was already on.
Old waazoo. Has Leanin Tree moved beyond Internet-Explorer?
I successfully navigate five steps.
Leanin Tree’s web-site is less friendly. No longer a train-card section.
I had to search the specifical cards I wanted by catalog-number; the catalog I received via snail-mail.
Leanin Tree has everything anymore; including grizzled Granny picking her nose.
I click “complete order,” and into the ozone. Spinning soccer-ball; the MAC equivalent of the hourglass.
Oh well; fire up Internet-Explorer.
Internet-Explorer displays the web-site a little screwy; search-window up here, and go-button down there.
Good old Internet-Explorer. My FireFox didn’t do that.
I start filling in the order with “auto-fill,” and then IE dives into the ozone.
I don’t even remember why. —Just that I decided mañana; some other time with Internet-Explorer.
So I quit IE, and it fell back to FireFox, which was on in the background.
I get the “unable-to-connect” screen, and the “retry” button, a screen I see occasionally when the web-cam at the mighty Curve, my FireFox home-page, doesn’t work.
So I hit “retry” before shutting off, and VIOLA! I get the Leanin Tree completed order page.
Thankfully, only one order in my e-mail — I’ve had double-orders when a browser bombed.
But I didn’t get very far with Internet-Explorer.
In fact, as I recall, it was telling me I ordered 225 cards (for crying out loud) instead of 25.
....And wouldn’t let me change it.

My mother’s maiden-name was “Connor.” My Aunt Betty was after her; the last Connor child.

The Pennsylvania Railroad (“Pennsy”) is 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. As a child, I lived along the Pennsylvania-Reading (“RED-ing,” not “READ-ing”) Seashore lines in south Jersey, which was partially Pennsy. (“Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines” [PRSL] is an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading railroad-lines in south Jersey to counter the fact the two railroads had too much track. It was promulgated in 1933. It serviced mainly the Jersey seashore from Philadelphia.) I witnessed the end of steam-locomotion on the PRSL in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. PRSL used Pennsy equipment, as well as Reading.

Erlton, New Jersey until December 1957; northern Delaware after that.

I drive an Apple Macintosh computer; and am loudly excoriated by all my siblings who use PCs.

“FireFox” and “Internet-Explorer” are both web-browsers; “Internet-Explorer” more in use as a Microsoft product. (This blog-site wants FireFox. The “add-picture” icon is missing with Internet-Explorer.)

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, and have been since I was a child.) —Horseshoe Curve has a web-cam, but it’s awful.

Jack-call

So here I am yesterday (Thursday, August 21, 2008) motoring blithely south on Hopkins Road.
Hopkins Road would be a great motorcycle road, except I’m delivering excess vegetables to Joy Daggett, which I can’t do on a motorbike.
Joy Daggett and I used to work at the mighty Mezz — in fact, Joy is the lady that hired me, a giant stretch to hire a stroke-survivor who was still quite messed up back then.
I used to always unload excess produce from our garden on fellow Messenger employees.
And now even though I’m retired, I still do.
The mighty Mezz is on the way to the Canandaigua YMCA, so that’s a visit.
So is Joy, who like me is now retired.
Although somewhat roundabout; about five extra miles — but worth the jawing.
She lives out in the outback, but more-or-less in the direction of Canandaigua.
I was headed to Canandaigua for an annual eye-checkup at the Eye Center.
I have to say that lest the worry-warts think my vision has tanked — which it hasn’t.
The retina repair last fall (laser) looked fine.
So here I am motoring in our CR-V, and my cellphone, which is in my jacket-pocket, fires off.
I’m not answerin’! I tried to both drive and operate my cellphone at the same time last week.
NEVER AGAIN! —Maybe a fevered blowhard can do it, but not a stroke-survivor. I was wanderin’ all over the road.
“Was that you?” I ask Joy.
I fire up my incoming missed calls. It says it’s Jack.
Oh, for cryin’ out loud!
He left a message.
I access my voicemail, and it’s the usual turgid blustering and boring put-downs.
“This guy badmouths everything I do or say,” I tell Joy.
“To delete this message, press seven.”
BAM!
He was saying something about my “needing” to guess where he was.
Well hellooooooo. I ain’t one of his contractors.
I don’t “need” to do anything.
Deafening silence. A long pregnant hum. Then a staticy horn-blow or something. Then back to the hum.
Five minutes of hum proceeded by noisesome yammering.

“Jack” (the “fevered blowhard”) is my all-knowing brother-in-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say.

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

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

I work out in the exercise-gym at the “Canandaigua YMCA.”

RE: “Worry-warts.....” —All my siblings go ballistic if I visit a medical establishment. E.g. a while ago I visited a skin-doctor for a checkup. “What was the problem?” they all screamed. (No problem — just a checkup.)

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

RE: “Contractors.....” —My brother-in-Boston is a construction supervisor.

Items

—1) “Unauthorized charger:”
-Every night, before we go to bed, I charge up our two cellphones.
Our cellphones, Motorola RAZRs from Verizon, are now about two years old, which makes them outta date in the current frenzied cellphone market.
But they’re fine for what I want to do, which is to no longer be tied to the landline network.
Easy to use too; large keyboard buttons, a bright display, and large display numbers.
I sometimes wish the display was brighter still, more visible outside.
I have to go by memory and feel, or find shade.
The phonebook I have to see; although I suppose I could use voice commands.
But that would require set-up, and I don’t have all day.
And I ain’t always jawing with just a couple contacts.
I don’t need voice-commands.
Last year a lady unholstered her cellphone in the dark on the tour-bus returning from our railfan excursion in central Pennsylvania.
The display was so bright she was illuminating the interior of the bus.
My cellphone is charged, so I set about charging Linda’s phone. Plug charger into phone side-port, and then the outlet.
I returned an hour-or-two later and looked at Linda’s display for “charge complete.”
But what it said was “unauthorized charger.”
“WHAT?”
This is the same charger we got with the phones.
It’s the Motorola charger.
We’ve used it almost two years!
I unplugged it and plugged it in again.
“Charging battery.”
Who programs these things?

—2) Extreme Home Mayhem:
-ABC’s “Extreme Home Makeover” invaded nearby Geneva to do a project.
The local TV-news is making hay of it, as is the mighty Mezz.
There’s Pennington leaping out his luxo-coach, yelling into his portable bullhorn.
“Hellooooooo Geneva!” he screams.
Tearful homeowners quiver and shake.
Manna from Heaven.
The homeowner is a retired boxer who broke his back, got his degree as a social-worker, and set up a free boxing program for troubled youth.
I guess he lives in a 150-year-old house (tonight, Wednesday, August 20, 2008, it was 200), and runs his program in it.
So Pennington and his merry mayhem makers are gonna demolish the house and build another.
Could they ever do otherwise, like repair the house instead of demolishing it?
A 150-year-old house is a treasure; although I’m sure it needs a lotta work.
I can just imagine what they’d do with the Stone-Tolan House, the oldest house in Rochester, built about 1790. BRING IN THE BIG-BOY’S TOYS!
“Extreme Home Makeover” is “This Old House” Americanized; bombast, violence and destruction. I remember them once lassoing a house to a monster-truck, and supposedly the monster-truck was gonna pull the house off its foundation.
Worked, sort of......
Except the house fell apart when the lasso broke.
No matter; we got mayhem on video — good for ratings in NASCAR-land. GIT-R-DUN!
I also remember them strafing a house with the Blue Angels. Napalmed it.
The front page of the mighty Mezz had a picture of one of Pennington’s languorously lipped, long-legged lithesome lassies walking languidly with a child of the homeowner. (Lassie was wearing short-shorts and cowboy boots.)
Another mega-cleavage buxom young tart who didn’t make it in Hollywood, so gravitated to “Extreme Home Makeover.”
And the TV-news interviewed that disgusting Moloney decorator dork: yada yada yada yada. I hope they can rein that guy in, so he doesn’t turn a bedroom into a sweat-stained boxing-ring.
In the words of the so-called “Hasidic Jew:” “How do ya ever pay the taxes on such an extravagance? I bet their assessment triples.”
And as my wife says: “How do ya ever clean such a thing? They turned a bedroom into a piano!”

—3) “We won’t conscience bullying!”
-There ya have it, Dr. Lindley; the whole reason I can’t make any sense of “International Relations.”
Here we have the premier Iraq bully saying he won’t accept bullying by the Russians in Georgia.

RE: “Railfan excursion in central Pennsylvania......” —In June of 2007 we did a dinner-train excursion on the Tioga Central Railway (a shortline operator on the old New York Central Williamsport branch in central Pennsylvania) with the Rochester Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. The NRHS is nation-wide. We went on a tour-bus. I’ve been a railfan all my life.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

“Geneva” is a large town (actually a city) east of where we live. It’s the next large town after Canandaigua.

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

“Hasidic-Jew” is L. David Wheeler, an editor at the Messenger newspaper. —Upon seeing a photograph of Wheeler, my ever-tolerant sister in south Floridy declared he looked like a Hasidic Jew.

“Dr. Lindley” was the professor of my “International Relations” course at Houghton College. She gave me a “B.” —I was always complaining to her that the course “made no sense.”I graduated Houghton College in western New York in 1966 with a BA degree. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college. Wheeler was also a Houghton grad (‘91).

Character-change

The new bow-window in the living-room. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

It’s amazing to realize we’ve been in this house, our dream home, the house we intended to finish our lives in, almost 19 years.
And it hasn’t collapsed, or exploded, or been turned over to wild-haired Ty Pennington and his merry blue-helmeted makers of mayhem. (Do they ever NOT destroy and remove the old house?)
This is despite our not including the self-declared construction expert — or perhaps because we didn’t.
Our house is a special design: super-insulated, with foot-thick exterior walls and 23 inches of blown insulation atop the ceiling.
My blowhard macho brother-in-Boston noisily asserts I designed it, which is WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOO, WRONG-OOOO.
Our input was only the floorplan, and my suggestion as to the general appearance of the house.
We hired an architect, which was required by state law.
In fact, we requested suggestions as to how he might improve our floorplan, as we wanted the laundry on the first floor (not the cellar or the garage), but not necessarily where we had it.
But he used our floorplan, making no changes.
So now the laundry is between the master bedroom and the recreation room.
And the main bathroom (not master) lacks windows. It’s not on an exterior wall — and too far from the roof for a skylight.
The architect specified a treated-wood foundation that turned off many bidders. We wanted a treated-wood foundation too, because it could be better insulated. The architect also specified special “ground-contact” treated wood, plus “Bituthene” layered water-proofing film, not the usual sprayed-on asphalt gunk.
He also specified a complete foundation drainage-system with drain-pipe both inside and outside the foundation.
All of this turned away the super-insulated housing contractor we tried, who wanted to put in a treated-wood foundation of regular treated-wood, without the extensive water-proofing and drainage we specified.
I sometimes think we shoulda used one-inch plywood for the subfloor, instead of the 3/4-inch specified.
And the floor-joists are only 2x10; didn’t have to be 2x12, due to the width of our house.
The typical house is a little over 24 feet wide. That’s because a 2x12 can span 12 feet at 24 inches on-center (may be 18; the roof-trusses are 24 inches on-center) — two 2x12s and a center-beam.
But our house is 38 feet wide, requiring two center-beams.
The exaggerated width of the house was determined by the garage, and the kitchen turned 90 degrees from the house-length.
The garage was designed to swallow our HUGE E250 Ford van (plus a second car). It’s 24 feet deep by 28 feet wide; wider than most houses.
A lot of forethought went into our kitchen: mainly to lay it out so we didn’t hafta hike all over.
We tried various designs, but finally ended up flip-flopping our kitchen on Winton Road, although we added a dishwasher and moved all the appliances to one side (except the refrigerator, and freezer — which ain’t in the cellar).
That’s because our kitchen at Winton Road worked fairly well.
But turning it 90 degrees relative to house-length increased house-width.
The other factor that increased house-width was door-size. All doors were to be wheelchair clearance; 36 inches wide.
My mistake was to include 36-inch closet-doors. One bedroom has a 72-inch opening, and the other bedroom has two closets, each with a 36-inch opening.
That increases bedroom depth, which increases house-width.
But I don’t worry about it much. Our house is oversize, but if it were narrower, it would be overwhelmed by that garage — which I couldn’t decrease in size without throwing the E250 outdoors.
We also were trying to minimize window space, since no matter how well they seal, a window is a hole in the wall.
All our windows are casement, since double-hung end up not sealing as well.
But our living-room wanted a BIG window, so at first it was four-panel 96-inch total width.
But now it’s a five-panel bow window (see picture).
The character of our house is slowly changing.
First it was the garage-door which was changed to windowless.
The original garage-door windows ended up with failed sealing, and then fogged up between panes.
The panes had failed due to thermal instability of the door, which was exposed directly to the sun.
And now the original flat living-room window has been replaced with a bow window.
It’s the onliest window in the house that ain’t flat, so sticks out like a sore thumb.
We coulda replaced it with a similar flat window, but the individual panes opening at full size, were so heavy they sagged.
Our option woulda been small opening awning windows, with large solid panes in the remaining space.
But I always liked that bow window at Oak Lane Manor, so I decided to install a bow window.
But unfortunately our window ain’t what was at Oak Lane Manor, which was three individual panes stacked vertically in each panel.
Our window is a single pane for each panel; and only the end-windows open.
All the panels opened in our old window, but we hardly ever opened them. They had sagged so much we had to close them from outside. —Plus we always used the air-conditioning. Plus opening the windows allowed road dirt in the house.
The character of our humble abode has changed, but it’s okay with me.
The unmowed part has reforested, and blocked us from everything. —I remember when -a) we could see our neighbor’s house next door, and -b) an all-night sodium-vapor light over the Legion parking-lot way up the street illuminated our bedroom from the kitchen.
We also now have a garden-shed with an off-center roof. Disconcerting to an artistical perfectionist.
Too bad the almighty Bluster-King wasn’t around to design everything.
But perhaps I’m glad he wasn’t. We’d be heating the outdoors with a 100,000 btu furnace. (Our current furnace is only 40,000 btu heating over 1,900 square feet. Not much heat-load.)

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.

“The self-declared construction expert” (the “almighty Bluster-King”), is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He claims my house is unsatisfactory and inadequate because I designed it. —He’s a construction supervisor.

We previously lived on “Winton Road” in Rochester.

“Casement” windows close like a flap; “double-hung” (bottom pane slides up beside the top pane; or vice versa) are what you usually see.

“Oak Lane Manor;” a suburban development north of Wilmington, Del., is where our family lived when I was a teenager. (Before that was Erlton, N.J.)

The West Bloomfield American Legion is in an old schoolhouse up the street from where we live.

RE: “Garden-shed with an off-center roof......” —Our shed was designed to face 90° from where we have it, so facing it the roof is off-center.

“Heat-load” is the amount of heat required to heat the house. We heat with a natural-gas furnace, but it could be small.

Dana

Eastbound Trail-Van comes off the Bypass. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

Yesterday (Sunday, August 17, 2008) I shot two birds with one stone:
—1) For some time I’ve wanted to railfan the Water-Level, which is now CSX, and as busy as the mighty Curve.
My mower-man, who is also a railfan, told me of a place he hangs out along where the Water-Level passes through nearby Fairport.
Fairport is also where the Rochester Bypass merges back into the Water-Level on its eastern end.
—2) Art Dana, a retired bus-driver, car-guy, and dear friend, lives near the Water-Level, and I’ve been promising to visit.
Like me, Dana was one of them lazy layabouts that never did anything, except -a) not get shot, and -b) keep it between the lines in all kinds of weather.
“It was a tough job, Hughsey,” Art said.
“I’d come home and be so wired I couldn’t sleep!” I said. “Granny slamming her K-car outta the mall parking-lot: ‘Oh look, Dora. A bus. Pull out; pull out!’ And I’m supposed to stop nine tons of hurtling steel on a dime without throwing my passengers outta the seats.”
Dana started driving bus a year or two before me, and was sort of a hippie.
He had a ponytail at first.
He ended up being an example for the rest of us; the way to succeed at this job was just go with the flow.
That being the case, it’s depressing to see Dana a little old man hobbled by Parkinson’s Disease.
Not totally crippled. But worse than Betty’s Tom, who isn’t very bad.
But the old fire is still there; the orneriness that defines Dana.
Dana used to live in the city (Rochester), but his wife died, and home-maintenance became impossible.
So together he and his sister bought a house in the suburbs.
“I really like it out here,” he said. “No dribbling basketballs outside at all hours of the night.”
Dana is 67; his sister is 57.
Dana purchased a basket-case of a Model-A roadster body, shortened and narrowed ‘46 Ford frame, early Ford chassis and driveline parts, and a souped-up ‘56 Pontiac V8 engine.
“Art, you can’t put that thing together,” his sister said; “you have Parkinson’s.”
“I’m puttin’ that hot-rod together if it’s the last thing I do!” Art declared.
“Art, maybe we should getcha one of them three-wheel bicycles,” his sister said — the kind Mother-Dear used to ride at the Last Motel, that have a basket in the back, and won’t tip over.
“I wouldn’t be caught dead on one of them things!” Art crowed. “You can buy it if ya want, but I ain’t ridin’ it!”
“Art,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I always felt bus-drivin’ made us this way.”
Or perhaps the shark run-over-by-the-bus has it better: the reason we succeeded at bus-driving is because we were ornery to begin with.
“Much to the dismay of my superior-mouthed brother-from-Boston, who loudly badmouths everything I do or say,” I said.
“There’s one in every family,” Art said.
So here we are sitting trackside on metal boxes where the main drag in Fairport crosses the Water-Level.
I hear a locomotive-horn at a road-crossing nearby.
“Sounds like the Bypass, Art.”
I turn on my camera, and the gates drop at the grade-crossing.
A long eastbound Trail-Van rumbles by (see picture), sounding it’s horn as it approaches.
“Them locos were HUGE,” Art says. —Two General-Electric Dash-9 44Cs.
“Awfully long train too.” Mostly trailer-on-flatcar, but also double-stack.
“There’s a Coke-machine across the street.” —I think maybe I should offer to go get it myself, so he wouldn’t hafta cross the street.
But “no,” I think. I bet he can make it. And he did, with no help from me at all.
We also saw an eastbound Amtraker on the Water-Level doin’ about 65 or so, but it was blocked by the Trail-Van on the Bypass.
That’s all we saw: just the two.
After about an hour, we drove back to Art’s humble abode.
But we swapped old bus-driving stories first.
Most memorable was Art telling how he broke a rear-axle on his bus northbound on Lake Ave.
He calls the radio-man, and reports he is crippled with a broken axle.
“What gives ya the right to think that?” radio-man responds. “You’re just the bus-driver; not a mechanic.”
“Well, Woody; I look in my mirror and I see the rear-duels about five feet out in the road beside the bus; so it looks to me like an axle broke.”
We also swapped stories about brain-injury — which defined is partial death of brain-tissue. A stroke kills part of your brain; as does Parkinson’s.
We talked about poor balance, and compromised speech.
“I know all about it, Hughsey. I also get confused.”
Art’s hot-rod was in the garage, draped with a tangle of wires.
“People ask what color I’m gonna paint it,” Art said.
“DON’T YOU DARE!” I said. “It’s in flat-black primer, the color it should be.”
“Right,” Art said. “It’s a hot-rod.”
“First it was blowing taillights, so people started rearranging wires,” Art said. “Now nothing works. The guy who wired it in the first place is coming next week.”
Art’s not the analytical type. I successfully rewired my 1952 Chevrolet pickup. Art is intimidated by ‘pyooters too.
But he put the thing together, and he’s almost done; his Parkinson’s car.
“I had a lotta trouble with that motor,” Art said.
“We got a gasket-set, but they didn’t take, so I ended up with antifreeze in my oil.”
“Second set didn’t take either; but my fourth set did.”
“Let’s see if it’ll light.”
Rumpeta-rumpeta-rumpeta; tailpipes shake and quiver.
“Too bad the wiring’s a mess, Hughsey; I’d take ya for a ride.”
“I remember you and Jimmy Tranquil in his ‘32 hi-boy, and how you were sittin’ in the shotgun seat grinning from ear-to-ear,” I said.
“Yep, that thing had a 350-Chevy. He sold it.”
“This car had triple-deuces on it at first, but they were a mess, so I put this big Edelbrock four-barrel on it. No more backfiring through the carb, and it runs sweet — just steers like a truck.”
“Wafo?” I asked.
“Well, the front is probably carrying 200 more pounds than before; so the back is too light. The car only weighs 2,300 pounds.”
“And I got them tires from Coker;” bias-ply wide-whites — nothing like you’d see any more, but the proper equipment for an early ‘50s hot-rod.
Lever-shocks too; “original Houdaille; but they don’t do anything. The car is too light.”
And the suspension is transverse buggy-spring, solid beam-axle in the front, and banjo in the rear.
“What are ya lookin’ at, Hughsey?”
“First time I ever saw a banjo; this center-section is a casting,” I observed.
And the front radiator-shell is steel ‘32 Ford, with a ‘32 Ford radiator.
“600 dollars,” Art said.
“But the ‘32 Ford shell is the best,” I said.
“So do I call you the next time I chase trains on the Water-Level?”
“Yep; let’s boogie!”
Hardly can walk, but not dead yet.

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.

“The Water-Level” is the old mainline of the New York Central Railroad across New York State, now operated by CSX Transportation. Called “Water-Level” because it followed river-courses, and thereby avoided mountain grades. (The topography of New York State, north of the Allegheny Mountains, made west-east transportation easier.)

“CSX” is CSX Transportation (railroad); a merger of Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad with Seaboard at first, and then other railroads. It is now a major player in east-coast railroading; and has many of the ex New York Central Conrail Lines. (The other major east-coast railroad is Norfolk Southern.)

“Conrail” was a government amalgamation of east-coast railroads that went bankrupt pretty much at the same time as Penn-Central, a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central. Conrail included other bankrupt east-coast railroads, like Erie-Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley; but eventually went private as it became more successful. Conrail has since been broken up, sold to CSX Transportation Industries (railroad) and Norfolk Southern railroad. CSX got mainly the old New York Central routes, and NS got the old PRR routes.

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, and have been since I was a child.)

“The Rochester Bypass” is the old West Shore line south of the city — it bypasses Rochester; doesn’t go through. The “West Shore” was a line financed by the Pennsylvania Railroad built to compete directly with the New York Central Railroad in New York state in the late 1800s. It was merged with NYC at the behest of J.P. Morgan, who got all the warring parties together on his yacht in Long Island Sound. The NYC got the West Shore for no longer financing the proposed South Pennsylvania Railroad (which was graded but never built, including tunnels, which were incorporated into the Pennsylvania Turnpike). It was called the “West Shore” because it went up the west shore of the Hudson River. It’s been largely abandoned west of the Hudson, although the segment around Rochester became a bypass around Rochester.

RE: “One of them lazy layabouts.......” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. My all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, claims bus-driving is nothing.

“Betty” is my sister Betty (Elizabeth). She’s second after me, 62 (I’m the oldest at 64). She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Her husband’s name is “Tom;” and he has Parkinson’s, but not very bad.

“Mother-Dear” was the nickname we children called my mother. The “Last Motel” was the retirement center in Floridy my parents lived in — called that because the halls looked like a motel. (Both parents are dead.)

“The shark run-over-by-the-bus” is my wife, who my macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston claims is a shark for her always teasing him. He also claims I “throw her under the bus;” i.e. blame her for my so-called “mistakes.” For example, she hit a rock with our small mower. My reporting same was “throwing her under the bus.” Of course, it wasn’t me that hit the rock; and I wasn’t angered by it.

A “Trail-Van” is a train of long flatcars with highways trailers on them; often two per car in tandem.

“Double-stack” is two trailer containers stacked two high without wheels in so-called “wellcars.” —It’s much more efficient than single containers (or trailers) on flatcars, since it’s two containers per car. It’s the same shipping containers shipped overseas; where they may be stacked three or four high, or even higher if a support deck is under a stack. But “double-stacks” require very high clearance; over 20 feet. Bridges had to be raised, and tunnels made larger.

“Jimmy Tranquil,” like Art, was another bus-driver, and very much into hot-rodding. He got a 1932 Ford hi-boy roadster, which is a roadster at stock height, but without fenders. —A “roadster” is just a small canvas top atop a two-seater body. It’s not closed, and not “convertible.”(“Roadsters” are no longer made; although you do see “convertible-roadsters:” two-seater convertibles.)

A “350-Chevy” is the largest stock displacement for the storied Small-Block Chevrolet V8. —The “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 Small-Block was the choice of hot-rodders. It was very “rod-able,” and replaced the Ford Flat-head V8, the first motor-of-choice of hot-rodders.

“Triple-deuces” is three two-barrel carburetors, usually in tandem front-to-back. (More carburetion increased breathing, and horsepower. —A stock V8 might have only had one two-barrel at that time; with a four-barrel to increase horsepower.)

“Bias-ply” as to the more current “radial-ply” tires. Radial-ply became the norm in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Bias-ply were not as road-worthy as radials; which are more compliant.

“Lever-shocks” as opposed to what is used now, which are concentric tube shocks. The suspension worked a lever, which worked the shock-absorbers. Ford used lever-shocks for years, and our ‘53 Chevy had lever-shocks — I think.

“Transverse buggy-spring” is what usually was found on early Ford products. The spring is a multi-leaf spring at 90° to the frame; i.e. across the frame. —Called a “buggy-spring” because that was what was usually found on horse-buggies.

A “solid beam-axle” is a forged axle-beam with wheels at each end — so that if one wheel is bumped, it effects the other wheel. Front beam-axles are no longer used, except on large trucks. Front suspension is now independent at each end; wheels not connected.

A “banjo” rear axle was a solid rear axle with a banjo-shaped center-section for the differential. Early on, Ford used the banjo-axle for years.

“Old Joe” is gone

(Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

He had to be removed yesterday (Saturday, August 16, 2008) —See photo above.
“Old Joe” is a red maple our recently deceased 94-year-old nosy neighbor planted years ago in front of his house.
It grew to a fairly large size.
Vern and I had a good time with Old Joe.
“If I find any purple leaves in our yard, they’re goin’ into your mailbox,” I’d say.
I stuffed his mailbox with purple leaves a few times.
“I’m glad ya found ‘em,” he’d say. “I got plenty more. I can blow ‘em across the street with my leaf-blower. Maybe the wind’ll do it for me!”
But with Vern gone, Old Joe was dying.
He only put out half his leaves this year, and they were shriveled.
He probably woulda died even with Vern still alive.
But to me the removal of Old Joe is a symbol of Vern’s death.
A couple guys showed up yesterday and chainsawed Old Joe into firewood. The leaves go on Billy’s mulch pile.
The stump will become a bear sculpture.
The moving finger having writ moves on........

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.

The “94-year-old nosy neighbor” was “LaVerne (‘Vern’) W. Habecker,” our neighbor across the street from where we live. We called him that because he was always watching us — and enjoyed our picking on him.

“Billy” is Vern’s only child. He’s in his 70s, and lives alone in Vern’s old house. His wife died last year.

For Billy

For Billy. (Screenshot on the mighty MAC.)

Illustrated above is the Excel spreadsheet we created last night.
Billy, the only child of the recently deceased 94-year-old nosy neighbor, and his wife Marguerite, has taken up residence in their house across the street.
He’s in his 70s, his wife died last year, and he came up from Pennsylvania to take care of his parents. He’d lived near Pittsburgh.
Now that both parents are gone, he’s alone in their house.
He came over the other day and asked if we could list on our computer all the U.S. Savings Bonds he’d inherited, and was cashing.
His bank suggested he do this.
So he left me with 46 U.S. Savings Bonds to list.
At first I was thinking of doing it with AppleWorks, but this project begged for Excel.
Another opportunity to experiment with Excel.
All the bonds were Series-EE, and all owned by LaVerne W. Habecker. Most were $1,000, but a few were $500.
Each bond had a different number.
So the object was to list each bond as below:

That’s 46 rows on a spreadsheet, “Series-EE” and “LaVerne W. Habecker” and his Social Security number in each row.
I.e. The first column can be all “Series-EE,” and the fifth and sixth columns all “LaVerne W. Habecker” and his Social Security number.
Linda set about cranking in the bond numbers and face values in her spreadsheet program, which isn’t Excel — I think it’s just “Works.”
She then e-mailed me her spreadsheet file as .XLS.
I downloaded that, and fired up my Excel-98.
Open “For Billy” and there it is.
—1) Insert column to left, and type “Series-EE” into the top cell.
—2) Highlight the column, and fill “Series-EE” into every cell.
—3) Insert column to right, and type “LaVerne W. Habecker” into top cell.
—4) Highlight column, and fill “LaVerne W. Habecker” into every cell.
—5) Insert column to right of that, and type his Social Security number into the top cell. —Except Excel doesn’t like hyphens; it had to be the slash, otherwise it wouldn’t let me.....
—6) ....fill his Social Security number into every cell below.
Next item of business: print.
—A) We decided it needed the grid-lines; lest the bond-clerk go bleary-eyed. —“Format cells;” all grid-lines selected.
—B) “Define print area;” otherwise it wants to print the full spreadsheet which is mostly empty — 89 bazilyun pages.
It prints two pages; one column was beyond the margins.
So I abbreviate the column heads so the columns aren’t so wide, and it shows one page on the print preview.
“Okay Billy, if you’re still up, I’m comin’ over.”
“How much do I owe ya?” he asks.
“Nothing!” I say; “except ya can take this zucchini,” which was the size of the Hindenburg.

Times chart. (Screenshot on the mighty MAC.)
Illustrated above is another Excel experiment, which was e-mailed to the self-declared Excel expert. He was supposedly going to fix two things I saw as wrong with the chart: like -1) the times were minutes and seconds, instead of just minutes; -2) the bottom line was events instead of dates.
Not surprisingly, no response whatsoever, at any time, ever.
He noisily claimed he would apply his esteemed knowledge to fix my so-called “silly spreadsheet;” but I never got a response.

As always, my “puny” and reprehensible knowledge of Excel is purely from winging it. No manual; nothing but poke around and try things.
A while ago I set up another spreadsheet to chart the mileage for our two cars; another Excel experiment (dread).
It wasn’t doing what I wanted, which was to line-graph the mileage for each car.
Then we took the Bathtub to the mighty Curve, which entailed two consecutive gas purchases.
That’s two adjacent cells on my spreadsheet. VIOLA! Excel cranked a line between the two.
So I surmised Excel won’t chart across a blank cell. What I did was a single spreadsheet for each car; so that each car’s gas purchase is adjacent to the one before.
It ain’t the combination spreadsheet I desired, but it line-graphs each car.
Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk..... (I had a stroke too.)

The “94-year-old nosy neighbor” is “LaVerne W. Habecker,” our neighbor across the street from where we lived. We called him that because he was always watching us — and enjoyed our picking on him.

“AppleWorks” and “Excel” are both computer applications; Microsoft Excel spreadsheet application, and AppleWorks a word-processor, spreadsheet application, paint, etc. I could have used either, but have more experience with Excel.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

“.XLS” is the Windoze Excel document extension — MAC is .XCL. My wife only has Microsoft Works, but can save as an Excel document. My MAC Excel will open Windoze .XLS documents. (My wife drives a Windoze PC.)

“The self-declared Excel expert.” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He claims to be more knowledgeable in Excel than me; and he probably is, but he didn’t solve my problem. In fact, he never responded.

“The Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub.

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, and have been since I was a child.) —I try to go there quite often in summer.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993. I'm running on what's left of my brain — computer software should be beyond my ability.

“At long last.......”

Generac Stand-by generator. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

Yesterday (Wednesday, August 13, 2008), along with completion of our giant window replacement project, we had a heating-contractor service our stand-by generator.
The stand-by generator kicks on automatically if the power fails. The idea is to maintain both our freezer and refrigerator, plus the furnace and water heater, though gas, have electrical inputs.
The recently deceased 94-year-old nosy neighbor got one, although he was probably about 90 when he did.
We weren’t about to be upstaged by that old smarty-pants. Anyway, it seemed like a good idea out here where the power fails occasionally.
Just a regular service-call. Change the oil and filter, the plugs, and the air-filter; and test the function and output. (He also added water to the battery, which is a car-battery.)

(Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

I walk around the house to where the generator is and the technician has the lid up.
It’s depressing to think we’ve probably had this thing 3-4 years, and I’ve never had the cover open.
Linda always says she knows I had a stroke because I didn’t open it as soon as we got it.
“So what is it?” I asked; “a Briggs-and-Stratton overhead-valve V-twin running on natural-gas?”
I was given the look.
“Briggs-and-Stratton are junk!” —A great comment since my zero-turn has a Briggs-and-Stratton “Intek” V-twin.
“This is actually made by Generac, an industrial engine that will last forever if you maintain it.”
“Kind of like the Kawasaki flat-head in my John Deere riding-mower,” I said. “That thing’s 14 years old, and runs like a watch. All I do is change out the oil and filter every year, the plug, and often the air-filter.”
Techy then showed me how to check the oil-level and change the oil.
“It ran last winter once for eight hours continuous.”
“If it runs that long, ya should check the oil-level.”
“Very interesting,” I said. “At long last.......”

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: “Out here where the power fails occasionally......” —We live in the country.

“Plugs” equals spark plugs.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

Our “zero-turn” is our 48-inch Husqvarna riding-mower; “zero-turn” because it’s a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so it can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time in half compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass.

Before the stroke, I fiddled each gasoline gizmo the day we got it.