Wednesday, April 30, 2008

TrainsMag.com follies

Last night (Tuesday, April 29, 2008) I decided to order two books online from the Classic Trains web-site.
So I cranked “http://www.ClassicTrainsMag.com/promo” as requested into my FireFox, and got the ClassicTrains promo-page; the one you crank the promo code into.
So I dutifully cranked in the promo-code, and it brought up one of the books I wanted to order.
Okay, rolling right along, I fill out the order-form in its entirety, crank in my Visa, and hit “submit.”
Seconds pass, then minutes.
Uh-ohhhhh. Looks like “www.ClassicTrainsMag.com” has gone into the ozone.
“Go do something else,” I say. “Brush your teeth, make coffee; we’re into the ozone........” (ABYSS ALERT!)
“Haven’t you had this happen before with the Trains site?” Linda asks.
“Yes, I think I did,” I think to myself.
Time for Internet-Explorer; the horror-of-horrors; my browser of last resort, because it makes such a mess of things.
I think the Famblee-site still supports it — they were saying they would no longer support Netscape; that I should download-and-install FireFox or Flock.
My blog-site makes a mess of anything I posted with IE, and won’t show the picture-tab. You can’t fly pictures on the blog-site with IE.
—And furthermore, view the blog with IE (as Linda has) and it makes a mess. It shoves text up into my blurb alongside my HTML picture-boxes. I had to no longer use HTML picture-tags so IE wouldn’t do that.
Needless-to-say, everything looks right with FireFox.
I already had FireFox, so installed Flock, which appears to be a FireFox clone, and I was thinking of installing anyway.
Flock also grabbed all my Netscape bookmarks, so I view my MyCast weather-radar with Flock. (I’m also doing FlagOut with Flock — it’s my Flock homepage.)
So “http://www.ClassicTrainsMag.com” is still mired in the last century; they haven’t upgraded to FireFox yet.
Fiddle with IE and “http://www.ClassicTrainsMag.com” works. FireFox eventually showed the “too much time” page; and IE got the confirmation-page, which I printed.
Order number-two:
IE is still running so I crank “http://www.ClassicTrainsMag.com/promo” back into the browser-line, hit “enter,” and watch the globe spin.
Uh-ohhhhh; into the ozone again. Force-quit IE and start again from scratch. Even IE is spinning. I guess it can’t take a browser rewrite.
“http://www.ClassicTrainsMag.com/promo” from scratch works. I order book number-two.

  • “FireFox” is an Internet browser. I do this blog with FireFox. —So are “Flock,” and Netscape has an Internet browser, although it’s now a FireFox clone.
  • I’m a railfan. Have been all my life. I get “Classic Trains” magazine. These two offers were on it.
  • “Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.
  • All my siblings use Internet-Explorer (“IE”) on Windoze PCs, so therefore my macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston, the ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, insists I worship him, and use Internet-Explorer. I do, but only rarely, since it mucks things up. This blog wants FireFox.
  • “FlagOut” is our family’s web-site on MyFamily.com, 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.)
  • I use “MyCast” as my weather-site. It has updating weather-radar for specific locations you set up and name.
  • With MAC OS-X you can “force-quit” individual computer applications without possibly disabling the entire machine.

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  • Sunday, April 27, 2008

    Grampaw

    I am returning from mighty Weggers — go today (Sunday, April 27, 2007) so I can hit Tops tomorry or Wednesday to buy Ben & Fat Jerry chocolate ice-cream. —Tops is the onliest place that has it.
    I am westbound on Eastern Boulevard, the route 5&20 takes past Weggers.
    Ahead is a beige-metallic Cadillac, an FWD Caddy powered by a Northstar V8. —Probably pushin’ 5,000 pounds, if not over.
    The driver’s alone, except for a slobbering white Labrador, poking his head out the side-window.
    The Caddy is wondering all over the road. First he jukes to the left, changing lanes unsignaled, wedging into moving traffic.
    PRAAMMMMMP! “Why doncha look where yer goin’?” the driver of a giant dark-green F150 shouts. He had to hit his brakes.
    Grampaw then drifts to the right across the lane dividing-line — unsignaled of course — and then decides to suddenly change lanes to the right.
    More braking and horn-blowing.
    Thankfully all this is about 100 yards in front of me.
    But close enough to turn on my wipers. That dog is drooling.
    I continue to lay back; never know what Grampaw will do next.
    He seems blithely oblivious to surrounding traffic, except the car in front of him is slowing for a traffic-light.
    WOOPS! Another sudden unsignaled lane-change. Grampaw drifts left, and then lunges left to avoid the slowing car ahead.
    More braking and horn-blowing.
    “Turn up your hearing-aide, Grampaw!”
    Sorry guys, no Dubya sticker — sure drove like a Dubya-supporter.

  • “Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua — as does Tops supermarkets, which is based in Buffalo. The two compete all over western New York.
  • “Ben & Fat Jerry” is Ben and Jerry®. I got that inspired name from my friend Matt Saxon, who was a graphic designer at the Messenger newspaper, in Canandaigua, from where I retired. He started after me, and left before I retired.
  • “5&20” is the main east-west road through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live, and also goes through Canandaigua.
  • “FWD” equals front-wheel-drive.
  • A “Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right.
  • zero-turn


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

    And so begins another season of mowing lawn on the dreaded zero-turn.
    “Dreaded” because my all-knowing macho blowhard brother-in-Boston, the ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, insists I am completely incapable of using it.
    This despite my using it two seasons, and getting pretty good on it last year.
    A “zero-turn” is a special lawn-mower design.
    Unlike a lawn-tractor, it has individual actuation for each drivewheel, so it can be spun on a dime.
    The individual drive-wheels are activated by tiller-bars, one for each side.
    A lawn-tractor has to be driven all over to line up each cutting-swath.
    A zero-turn can get just spun at the end of each cutting-swath, and back over the adjacent cutting-swath it goes.
    To do that with a lawn-tractor you might have to spend 20 seconds or so lining it up. Those seconds add up.
    As such, most lawn maintenance operators have switched to zero-turns. You see them out there boomin’-and-zoomin’.
    At first the zero-turn design was just a commercial application. John Deere wanted almost 6,000 smackaroos.
    But then the mower companies, e.g. Huskvarna, started doing residential applications: not as substantial as a commercial application, and nowhere near as costly.
    I.e. a zero-turn application of the typical residential lawn-tractor.
    So I bought one. Additionally, at 48 inches it cut a wider swath than my old rider (at 38 inches); plus it was much faster.
    My Husky is a minimal zero-turn — I didn’t think I needed 20 horsepower or more.
    It’s a Briggs & Stratton overhead-valve “Intek” V-twin engine of only 18 horsepower.
    Sometimes the grass is high enough to stall it, but if that looks like it will be the case, I raise the cutting height.
    A lot of last Spring was at 4&1/2-inches; normally I cut at 3&1/2-inches. Three inches is not the same as three inches on our small Honda mower. Three inches is too short; 3&1/2 about right.
    My first year was a disaster.
    It must have been assembled by the Friday afternoon crew, as it chewed up two spindle-shafts (out if three), and wouldn’t run.
    The poor shop manager had to drag it back to his shop at least three times — maybe four.
    One year guarantee.
    It refused to run because the nearly invisible fuel-valve was partially closed, and once last year he had to drop everything when a front-tire went flat.
    He had to change out the tire-tube (the nipple had been cut off); but got me back mowing within the hour.
    Sure; suppose I had bought the thing at mighty Lowes.
    “Here is your receipt. We’ll have it back to you in 20 years. We have to ship it to India.”
    There also was a learning-curve. Ya don’t just drive it. I took it into a ditch once, and have mowed small trees.
    But keep using it, and ya get the hang of it. —Plus it cut my mowing time in half.
    Last year it went the entire season without a hitch (except that flat). —I think we have it nailed.

  • 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 cutting rotors (blades) are on “spindle-shafts.”
  • Saturday, April 26, 2008

    Today’s epistle

    —1) How can I let this go by?
    —News-item on the 6 a.m. NPR news from Dubya-Hex-Hex-High:
    “Stage collapses at Christian-Rock concert injuring many.”
    Christian-Rock? Ain’t that an oxymoron? In the world I grew up in, rock-n-roll music was of-the-Devil.
    Fans were reportedly dancing in a Christian mosh-pit.
    Wait just one cotton-pickin’ minute. Dancing was of-the-Devil too.
    And how, pray tell, in the wide, wide world can a mosh-pit be Christian?
    I suppose them fans were a-shakin’ their booties for Jesus.
    So the stage collapses at a Christian-Rock concert.
    Sounds like a sign to me.
    Jesus returns, and boy is he mad........

    —2) Not a plasma-baby this time.....
    .....But at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA.
    (When have I ever walked outta that place without material? —Marcy, it’s everywhere.)
    I’m on a treadmill, yesterday morning (Friday, April 25, 2008).
    Some have “cardio-theater;” a small flat-screen TV you can watch while exercising.
    No sound. It’s either close-captioned or install your own ear-buds.
    I’m on a cardio-theater treadmill, but I have the TV off. The one next to me is on.
    A young couple is on an empty Pacific beach at dusk, gorgeous sunset behind them, their faces lit by a tiny flickering campfire of driftwood.
    “It all comes down to just us, baby,” says Studley, close-captioned.
    “Not if I can help it,” says stunning female eye-candy.
    “99% of the humans on this planet shouldn’t exist,” says Studley. “It’s up to us to recreate the species.”
    “Not if I can help it,” female eye-candy repeats.
    “You’ll be back,” Studley asserts. “I guarantee it.”
    “Not in my birthday-suit!” eye-candy says.
    (Fade to black. Cut to ad.)
    Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich are sitting together on a cushy leather sofa in front of our nation’s capitol.
    “Hi, I’m Nancy Pelosi; current Speaker-of-the-House, and a life-long Democrat.”
    “Hi, I’m Newt Gingrich; former Speaker-of-the-House, and a life-long Republican.”
    “We don’t agree on much,” Pelosi says; “but we do agree on one thing.”
    “And what’s that?” Gingrich asks.
    “You tell ‘em, Newt,” says Pelosi.
    “And that’s saving the planet,” Gingrich exclaims.
    Suddenly they are hip-deep in the fast-rising Potomac, awash in algae, slime, and floating mcKartons.
    I’m sorry, but Sharpton and Robertson were better.

    —3) Open-House......
    ....yesterday afternoon (Friday, April 25, 2008) at the mighty Mezz.
    All because longtime reporter Kathie Meredith is retiring after 40 years with the Messenger.
    A retirement party, more-or-less, although it’s structured as an open-house to allow readers to participate.
    So, a chance to see some of the greatest people I ever knew, like the webmaster, the so-called “Hasidic-Jew,” and Boss-Man, K-Man (Frisch), Poobah (Marky-Mark), and “‘pyooter guru.”
    I did stuff for Meredith; my hated Night-Spots file for her Steppin Out magazine. It was always pulling teeth, despite being a free ad. It always took way too much time, and I felt I was shorting it, but Meredith seemed pleased. —I told Frisch at a job-appraisal I thought Night-Spots might cause my retirement; and it sorta did. I hated it, but liked seeing it in print. By my doing it, Meredith wasn’t doing it on top of everything else she was doing, which probably would have blown a gourd.
    (When I retired, Meredith had to do it herself until they found someone else to do it — Marky-Mark’s daughter. Looking at it, it’s still pretty much my ‘pyooter-file. —Meredith often had to cut the abomination I filed.)
    So I walked in and was immediately glad-handed by the so-called “Hasidic-Jew,” then the webmaster, who I was awfully glad to see.
    I haven’t seen these people for months — no garden, at the moment.
    “You look great,” said the webmaster.
    “Well, YMCA; and retirement, which means time to do the YMCA. I’m no longer driving a desk,” I said.
    After a few minutes, I walked into the old newsroom, and ended up facing four people; me alone on one side, and the four across from me.
    “I feel like I’m holding court,” I said. “I seem to have attracted an audience.”
    “Are yaz all gathered here eagerly awaiting some snide remark, that makes yaz all laugh?”
    “Hi, Grady,” someone bellowed in passing. “Boy, I sure miss Grady,” I heard someone whisper. “This place is no longer any fun without Grady.”
    “No one to ask obscure questions to about railroading,” said the so-called “Hasidic-Jew.”
    “‘I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Butter’ is not butter,” and “in case of death, please contact your physician immediately,” I said, reprising some of the crazed insanity we once bounced around the newsroom.
    I also saw the all-powerful Tim Belknap; one of about seven editors at the mighty Mezz, and like me a car-guy. Belknap is one of the dreaded “Ne’er-do-Wells,” and responds to my epistles nearly every day.
    Rikki VanKamp, the chief Messenger photographer, was running around taking pictures. “One of these days that cat of yours is gonna demand royalties,” I said. Pictures of her cat have appeared many times in the Messenger.
    “Yo Joy,” I shouted. “Don’t leave without saying hello.”
    Joy was across the room, and seemed to be headed out the door.
    Joy (Daggett — retired) was the fix-it lady at the Messenger when I started, and is the one that hired me despite my being a stroke-survivor.
    “I still say this was the best job I ever had,” I told her.
    “And that was because the Messenger was a class-act.”
    She said she had just talked to Frank Brown, the head of paste-up when I started, and that I should address him as “a horse’s ass.” (Seems Frank had already left.)
    “It’s about time,” I said to Meredith as I headed out. Meredith was older than me, although only slightly.
    “If ya collect nearly as much in retirement as when ya were working, why work?” I asked.
    Nearly everyone there were Messenger-people; only a few weren’t.

  • “Dubya-Hex-Hex-High” is WXXI-FM, 91.5, the classical-music radio-station in Rochester we listen to.
  • “Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”
  • “Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston. (Both Marcy and Mahoney keep blogs — Marcy’s is Playtime at Hazmat.) —She asked me once how I observed so much insanity to report. “Marcy, it’s everywhere,” I answered. —I also told her to “marry someone that makes ya laugh,” and she did.
  • The “mighty Mezz” (“Messenger”) is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had.
  • “The webmaster” was my nickname for Matt Ried at the Messenger newspaper, who tended the newspaper’s web-site, as did I before I retired. But he was the leader; and as far as I know, still is.
  • The “Hasidic-Jew” is L. David Wheeler, an editor at the Messenger newspaper, and also a Houghton grad (‘91). —Upon seeing a photograph of Wheeler, my ever-tolerant sister in south Floridy declared he looked like a Hasidic Jew. (Others are “Boss-Man” [Robert Matson (“MATT-sin”), Executive Editor], also a Houghton grad, “K-Man” [Kevin Frisch (“Frish”), Managing Editor], and “Poobah” [“Marky-Mark;” Mark Syverud (“SYE-ver-ud”)] now retired.) —Syverud was once an editor, and manager. —“‘Pyooter guru” was the Messenger IT guy.
  • The “Night-Spots” file was a listing of local night-clubs with live music.
  • RE: “No garden, at the moment........” —Last summer I delivered excess produce from our garden to the Messenger; as I’ve done for years.
  • “Grady” was my nickname at the Messenger newspaper. See blurb above right.
  • RE: “No one to ask obscure questions to about railroading......” —I’m a railfan; have been since I was a kid.
  • RE: “‘I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Butter’ is not butter.....” is something my wife’s aged aunt once said trying to fry something.
  • RE: “The all-powerful Tim Belknap.......” —Tim Belknap is an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper; one of about seven. I once posted something by Belknap, and my brother-in-Boston loudly claimed Belknap was the whole and onliest reason the Messenger was so reprehensible; unaware the paper has at least seven editors, and Belknap is toward the bottom. Belknap like me is a car-guy, so we continue to keep in contact.
  • I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
  • Friday, April 25, 2008

    Running-times Excel sheets


    The chart. (Screenshot by the dreaded MAC.)

    Well, I guess I more-or-less have my Excel doing what I wanted it to do, which was chart the ups-and-down of my running times.
    As usual, whatever I did on this ‘pyooter was experimentation: try this, and see what happens. —No manual.
    And vague memories of my Excel class last spring.
    I try to run at the so-called elitist country-club at least twice a week; more in summer.
    So far this Spring I’ve run four times.
    I use my stopwatch to keep track of my running time, although I’ve lost track of my first time — which was slow anyway.
    I never kept track of my times before, although my goal last year was get under 23 minutes.
    I never did — snow flew, stopping my running.
    So I never could compare the ups-and-downs of my running.
    That would require a chart.
    First I wanted to keep track of my running times, which I could do in an Excel spreadsheet.
    Then I remembered, from my Excel class, that Excel could also generate a chart.
    Groovy; the ups-and-downs of my running made visual.
    First was the actual spreadsheet itself: only three rows, but each theoretically as long as Excel will do.
    The first row is formatted as dates: i.e. each column is a date-entry.
    Rows two and three are “custom” formatted to be hours-minutes-seconds; although I doubt I’ll ever be over an hour, so hours is always zero.
    We noticed each cell was always reading hours first; i.e. if we entered just minutes and seconds (e.g. 24:25), it was reading 24 as midnight on a 24-hour clock.
    Oh well; crank in the zero — no big deal.
    The third row is sums: the sums of each column, so that blank columns total as zero. The third row will be identical to the second row, since it’s only summing that row.
    Then I wanted to try the chart function; seemed doable per my Excel class.

    The spreadsheet. (Screenshot by the dreaded MAC.)

    I clicked the dreaded chart button.
    —1) Step One: I selected the line-graph — a pie-chart wouldn’t show me what I wanted.
    —2) Step Two: Select values to be charted. I tried the second row first, but that rendered a graph that didn’t show me anything.
    So I selected all of the third row displayed, which currently has column-entries of zero, and that displays the chart pictured.
    —3) Step Three: Name the chart (“Times”) and the X and Y axis. Okay, I forget which way X and Y go, but I see the axis names appear, so if I got ‘em backwards, we just flip-flop. I named them as “dates” and “time.”
    The really groovy part is the chart updates if I add times. I tried: made up a theoretical time for the fourth column, and the chart updated. (I didn’t “save” that; since it was just an experiment.)
    I still have more fiddling to do.
    I have a hunch my date-axis can have the actual dates. Right now it displays the column-number.
    I also recall (from my Excel-class) that the time-values can display as an actual number — probably in parentheses. Right now it shows me a dot, but not the actual time. A chart is nice to compare ups-and-downs, but it ain’t giving me the actual time.
    This Excel-file will also be e-mailed to my Excel master, the guy who taught the Excel class.
    We had a lotta fun.
    I know I’m supposed to be a stroke-survivor, but I’d rather have fun.
    We also noted it appears lots of things are happening in the background for that chart to look right. If they weren’t the chart might be almost flat — or extreme.

  • RE: “Screenshot by the dreaded MAC.......” —All my siblings use Windoze PCs, but I use an Apple Macintosh, so am therefore reprehensible and stupid.
  • “The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin”) Park, where we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns.
  • “We” includes “Linda,” my wife of 40+ years. She retired as a computer-programmer; so together we bomb blindly along, trying various ‘pyooter functions. She has Microsoft Works on her PC, which has a spreadsheet program — not as elaborate as my Excel, but looked similar enough to me to try my Excel. My Excel is Excel-98.
  • Thursday, April 24, 2008

    Aspirin

    Yesterday (Wednesday, April 23, 2008), as part of Hughsy’s P-T-T-M delivery-service, delivering Killian biopsy slides from Emergency Veterinary Services (where he is) near deepest, darkest Henrietta, to the veterinary hospital out in the sticks in Livonia......
    ......we patronized the infamous Honeoye Falls MarketPlace supermarket to buy spinach and milk and a few other things.
    “Whatever happens, we have to walk out of here with aspirin,” I said. “We’re almost out.”
    My aspirin is only 81mg: lo-dose. I used to take higher, but my doctor asked why.
    All it is is heart-maintenance; although I take two if I ran or worked out at the YMCA.
    You don’t need much. 81mg lo-dose is enough.
    So we found the analgesics, and I tossed of box of Bayer Lo-Dose in the cart.
    “Wait a minute,” my wife said. “Are they kidding? $8.13?”
    Back it went, but it was the onliest one I could see that said safety-coated.
    We took a “Top-Care” lo-dose at $3.29. Same aspirin as the Bayer.
    We poked around, and it said safety-coated.
    “Ain’t that Bayer Lo-Dose the one that’s advertised on TV?”
    “Some 40-ish lady with a licking dog — she telling us aspirin saved her life after a heart-attack?”
    “$8.13 is enough to give you a heart-attack.”

    (I PREDICT NOISY WAL*MART BLUSTERING FROM THE L-STREET POWER-STATION. Imported Chinese lo-dose safety-coated with red-lead, delivered by J.B. Hunt. [MASSIVE CARBON STOMP-PRINT FOR YOU, BABY!])

  • “P-T-T-M” equals “pedal-to-the-metal.”
  • “Killian” is our dog; a rescue Irish-Setter. He has open wounds on his thigh, so is at Emergency Veterinary Services. He also has lymphomic cancer, and is being chemoed at Livonia Veterinary Hospital. The biopsy was to determine if the skin-lesions were cancerous, which they aren’t. He’s over 10; we don’t know his birthday — we’ve had him over five years.
  • “Deepest, darkest Henrietta” is a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester.
  • “Honeoye Falls” is a small village about five miles away.
  • RE: “(I PREDICT NOISY WAL*MART BLUSTERING FROM THE L-STREET POWER-STATION. Imported Chinese lo-dose safety-coated with red-lead, delivered by J.B. Hunt. [MASSIVE CARBON STOMP-PRINT FOR YOU, BABY!])” —My all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, is a managing-engineer at the L-Street electrical generating station outside Boston. He excoriates me for not shopping Wal*Mart, although I have on occasion, but it’s an added trip. Wal*Mart gets many of its deliveries from J.B. Hunt trucking.
  • “Red-lead” is a lead-based paint often applied to ships’ bottoms — a heavy primer that wears well.
  • Wednesday, April 23, 2008

    David Findley ‘68


    David and Helga at a recent retirement party. (Photo by Jeff Yardis.)

    Yesterday (Tuesday, April 22, 2008) we received our Spring 2008 “Houghton Milieu,” the alumni magazine; otherwise known as the “Mildew.” —Named that by Messenger editor L. David Wheeler, Houghton College 1991, otherwise known as “the Hasidic Jew;” although I prefer the nickname he was given at Houghton: “Ledley.”
    Inside was a giant treatment about the retirement of David Findley ‘68 from Travelers Insurance in Conn., where he became a senior vice-president.
    It’s David all right — he made good apparently; although our memory of him was that he was a complete jerk.
    My perception is you have to be a jerk to be a successful manager, although it looks like his beloved Helga mellowed him some. (We sure hope so.)
    I have OCR scanned the entire article, since I think it’s pretty fair.
    But I’ve changed a few things to red and footnoted them.

    Here we go:

    Sometimes nice guys do come out on top (-1). Take for instance, the case of David Findley ‘68. At the end of December, Findley retired from his position as senior vice president and chief operations and information officer for St. Paul Travelers Insurance. At the end of his career, he led a part of the organization consisting of 4,900 employees in more than 130 locations with an annual budget of $402 million and revenues of $24 billion, servicing 1.2 million customers. Those who worked for and with him — from the mailroom to the board room — enjoyed and respected Findley so much that they gave him five separate retirement parties.
    “I never realized that people felt that way until I left the company,” Findley says, “and then all the accolades kept coming.” He said that all of them mentioned the same things: “My Christian character, and how I treated people — people could see the difference in the way I looked at life and the way I looked at issues, trials and challenges.”
    Don’t get the wrong idea — Findley is not taking the credit for this. Instead, he used his retirement parties, including the one with the Travelers most senior executives, to send a message. After presenting him with “all this stuff — of life,” he says they asked him to say a few words. His message? “All that I’ve achieved in the business world, I have to give back to my Lord and God, because He has blessed me beyond measure.”
    Those blessings started “at my mother’s knee,” Findley says, recalling his Christian upbringing. He went to a Wesleyan church in Ottawa and heard of Houghton through the denomination. He applied, but recalls that his SAT scores were too low. He credits former registrar, the late Wesley Nussey, for opening the door. Nussey arranged for Findley to matriculate at the college while taking English and American History from Lindol Hutton ‘57 at Houghton Academy.
    He “wasn’t the smartest guy in the college — by a long shot,” Findley admits, so it was a good thing that Ken Nielsen (-2), vice president emeritus for finance, gave him a job in the kitchen (in the basement of Gaoyadeo), where Findley “fell in love with this woman, Helga Jensen (-3) ‘68, who made sure that I went to the library every night.” Findley also remembers “falling in love with history,” for which he credits Kay (Walberger ‘43) Lindley (-4), professor emerita of history: “She was a fantastic teacher,” Findley says, “The sun just rose and set on her.”
    He also enjoyed English professor Jim Barcus ‘59 and professor emeritus of business administration Arnold Cook ‘43 and the late Ed Willett ‘39. “We just had so much fun,” says Findley. One time a campus business club called the Young Administrators Organization (YAO) had a guest speaker from the Travelers come down from Buffalo. “When I transferred to New York City with Travelers, the first person I met was that same man! He could not believe it! It’s a small world.”
    But we’re getting ahead of the story. After graduating from Houghton, Findley considered several offers, then accepted a position with the Travelers because of their management training program. After completing that course, he returned to Houghton to marry Helga and bring her back with him to begin their married life in Ottawa. After two years, she convinced Findley to ask for a transfer back to her hometown — New York City — where they stayed for two years before he was promoted to company headquarters in Hartford, Conn. Along the way he earned his master’s degree from Pace University.
    During his years in Hartford, Findley grew to appreciate the liberial arts education he had received at Houghton. Often, he recalls, people would ask him where he had gone to college, expecting him to name a “brand name” college or university known for its business school. He would enjoy the opportunity to tell them about Houghton.
    He made it a point when reviewing resumés — “and over the course of 40 years I’ve looked at a lot of resumés,” he notes — to look for somebody who had a well-rounded education and outside interests. “Then I know that they can speak and write and do the kinds of things that a liberial arts education (-5) prepares you to do,” he says. On the other hand, he said, were the candidates “who did nothing but study accounting” and didn’t get involved in outside activities. “Those I tended to fly over,” he says, “because I saw so many of them.”
    What difference did studying liberial arts at a Christian college make? “The obvious thing is that, from a Christian standpoint, ethics was very important back when it wasn’t,” Findley says. Perhaps less obvious, but certainly no less important — especially to Findley — is that “we treat people right, because that came out of our teaching — we were to treat people fairly. I’m not sure that we get enough of that.”
    “I see too many people in the business world that, frankly, are bullies (-6).” It bothers him greatly that many organizations tolerate them, even look up to them. “I don’t think they become the best leaders at all,” he says, “These people roll over other people.”
    That certainly wasn’t Findley’s way. Consider this excerpt from his official Travelers biography: “His endearing leadership style, coupled with intensive ongoing coaching and mentoring, has allowed him to develop a highly respected leadership team and ensured its continuity by extending key opportunities to the company’s next generation of leaders.”
    As Findley pointed out at his retirement, the Lord has blessed his willingness to be different. “Over and over and over again, He has blessed me,” he says, “with a career that has been very rewarding financially and from an ego standpoint and from a level of achievement. You cannot count them [the blessings] up.”
    In retirement, Findley intends to pursue his interest in HAM radio (call sign KB1WR) and ride his new BMW motorcycle in the Appalachians. He will continue to teach Bible studies and Sunday school — he “loves the Gospels and the letters of Paul” — at the Valley Community Baptist Church in Avon, Conn., where he and his wife are founding members and he has served as elder and chairman.
    “At the end of my career, looking back on it, I could never have predicted it,” Findley says, “I was fortunate. I don’t look back and say that happens to everybody, but when I look back on it, I have to say to myself, there’s only one person that I can give the honor and glory to.”


    David W. Findley in 1966.
    —RE: (-1) “Nice guys do come out on top.” This has to be the most amazing thing we’ve ever read.
    Findley was on the dish-crew at the Gaoyadeo Dining-hall; and no one could stand him.
    There were three manned positions on the dish-crew, the people shoving dishes through the dishwasher for cleaning. They were: “hot-end,” “spray,” and “donut.”
    “Hot-end” was a long metal chute from the dishwasher exit to another room where dishes were put away. Findley would try to get the loaded racks of dishes down the chute and onto the floor. —The girls in the adjacent room, where dishes were put away, hated when Findley worked “hot-end” because they had to stop his angry slings.
    “Spray” was a small sink at the head of the dishwasher, where the operator would spray off a loaded rack of dishes before shoving them into the dishwasher. That person used a shower-head on a flexible metal hose.
    Give Findley a flexible shower-head, and he sprayed all-and-sundry. His greatest joy was spraying through the wall-mounted ventilation-fans to the outside, to soak innocent passersby.
    The “Donut” was a large rubber insert over a 10-inch hole through the large stainless-steel dishwasher feeder-tray. The donut-hole was over a garbage-can. Waiters (or waitresses) would deliver the stacked plates with all the garbage heaped on the top plate.
    The donut operator then smashed the plates into the donut to empty the garbage.
    Two girls were beside the donut man to insert dishes into racks for dishwashing. For speed, the girls would grab the dishes as the garbage was emptied.
    What Findley would try to do is smash the hands of the girls on the donut.
    The girls hated working with Findley — who they preferred was me, because I took care to not smash their hands.
    During my tenure I suggested to those girls my birthday was coming; and they should celebrate my birthday.
    They all jumped enthusiastically on board; and Findley was madder than a hornet. He stalked off in a jealous huff.
    “Well, you could have a birthday-party too, David — if you were anywheres near civil!” they said.
    It’s also worth noting that Findley would have nothing to do with cleaning up the dish-room at all.
    That was left to Ken McGeorge and me. McGeorge went on to become a hospital CEO in Nova Scotia.

    —RE: (-2) “Ken Nielsen (‘NEEL-son’).”
    At that time “Ken Nielsen” was the head of the Gaoyadeo Dining-hall; not the college Business-Manager he eventually became. In fact, in 1961, before Houghton, he was the director of Sandy Hill Boys Camp — his wife was the head of the Girls Camp — and thereby reversed the utter madness of the Delaware Valley Christian School crowd, which made such a mess in 1960.
    Before that he was head of “Youthtime;” a Christian youth ministry in Buffalo.
    “Nielsen” hired me; the idea being I would be horsemanship director at Sandy Hill in the summer of ‘63.
    But my father put paid to that: it was more important that I “make money” than save souls.
    So Nielsen’s best-laid plans came to nought; I went to work for Mahz-N-Wawdzz instead.
    But I thereby became part of the hallowed Gaoyadeo kitchen-crew. And like me, Findley probably started as a “cart-boy;” one who collected glasses and silverware on a wheeled cart for delivery to the dish-room.
    As a “cart-boy,” I (and Findley) often ended up subbing for regular dish-crew people — in my case mostly for Paul Mouw ‘64, who headed the college yearbook. (We also often subbed for David Moore ‘64, who preferred “hot-end;” and seemed to loathe working at all.)
    So that by my junior year I was regular dish-crew; and Findley was my senior year.

    —RE: (-3) “Helga Jensen ‘68”
    Findley was extremely hot for Helga, supposedly because she had big boobs. He would take her out and return with blast-marks all over his crotch.
    His courting Helga seemed a joke; whatever she saw in him, we don’t know — potential, I guess.
    Lo-and-behold romance flowered, and Helga married David.
    Congratulations, David. Ya got what ya thought ya wanted; which as far as we ever knew was big boobs.
    Looking at Helga now we see a doting grandmother. We think she mellowed David; and perhaps made him a better person. (We sure hope so — and this article makes him sound much better than the jerk we knew.)

    —RE: (-4) “Kay (Walberger ‘43) Lindley.”
    Well, Dr. Lindley was the mother-of-all-mothers; a kindly and saintly person who pleasantly accommodated all in her classes.
    But unlike David, she wasn’t the professor that inspired my change from a Physics-major into a History-major.
    That would be Dr. Richard L. Troutman, ‘53, a wiry little guy who was on the outs because he was a Democrat in a hotbed of Republicanism. He also had a habit of breaking college rules. He allowed his wife to wear jewelry, for heaven sake. When his ‘57 Belair-six gave out, he got a black ‘58 Impala two-door hardtop with a tri-carb 348 and duals.
    Down the hill he’d come, roaring and backfiring.
    Lindley started in ‘64; mostly because Troutman was on-the-outs, and could never be History-Department head.
    With Lindley, Troutman eventually left, but after I graduated in 1966.
    His house had also burned out; and the good Houghton-burghers furtively declared it was a sign from the Lord.

    —RE: (-5) “Liberial arts education.”
    “Liberial” is now how my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston noisily insists “liberal” is spelled. (More recently it’s “liberila.”) He was trained as an engineer, and noisily insists engineers are far-superior to liberal-arts graduates.
    Houghton was tilted toward liberal-arts — I myself was a History-major; a liberal-arts student — and Findley saying liberal-arts students were better prepared to deal with the working world is nice.
    But I think it’s more than just the ability to write and/or speak; i.e. communicate.
    To me the main benefit of a liberal-arts education is to learn time-management — able to process a massive pant-load of seemingly useless drivel for later regurgitation into an “exam” — dread. (Like the name of Napolean’s horse: “It’s in the book, class. Page 213.”)
    I once was instructed to purvey a massive “annotated bibliography” to Troutman; 89 bazilyun books I was supposed to read.
    I was the onliest one to turn it in; took Troutman over a year to grade it. (I got an “A.”)
    But I didn’t actually read the books. All I did was skim.
    Others did nothing at all; except complain the assignment was impossible.
    What I did was skim maybe five books per week, and thereby was able to turn in the annotated bibliography on time.
    Troutman was speechless — I was paraded as an example to all the complainers.
    —An extreme example of extreme time-management. Planning out the work required to produce the HUGE annotated bibliography on time.
    This later worked its way to the mighty Mezz: producing my hated “Night Spots” file for the weekly “Steppin’ Out” magazine, by doing so much per day a week in advance.

    —RE: (-6) “Bullies.”
    The David Findley we knew was the ultimate bully.
    He used to torture poor Allen F. Repko ‘66 (the “F” stood for “folderol”), because Repko, the ultimate innocent straight-arrow, was just learning the joys of necking from his girlfriend Donna Lee Berry ‘68.
    Repko was surprised and terrified by the heated passion that arose in him, so Findley, supposedly experienced in the ways of love, jumped all over him.
    He’d horn in, sit with Donna Lee, and make fun of poor Repko.
    Another sterling example of “bullying” was Findley’s treatment of poor Blanche.
    Blanche was a 60-ish woman who worked in the Gaoyadeo kitchen; who supposedly had strong body-odor.
    “Turn on the fans!” Findley would yell, if Blanche dared walk into the dish-room.
    He’d hold his nose and run outdoors. “I need air (pant-pant)!” he’d yell.
    Suppose a “Blanche” worked at Travelers? Had Helga straightened him out — made him more tolerant? —If so, thank you Helga. You’re a saint. Ya made the world better.

  • Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious college, although I’m not religious — and surely an abhorred graduate. I went there as an alternative to attending a more religious school my father attended, that wasn’t a college — then.
  • The “Messenger” (“mighty Mezz”) is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had. —Upon seeing a photograph of Messenger editor L. David Wheeler, my ever-tolerant sister in south Floridy, who is slightly younger than me, suggested he looked like “a Hasidic Jew.”
  • An “OCR scanner” is an Optical Character Recognition scanner. It scans text and creates a computer text-file of the copy scanned.
  • The “Gaoyadeo (‘Gay-oh-DEE-oh’) Dining-hall” was the original dining-hall at Houghton College. The Gaoyadeo building has since been torn down, but it was once a dormitory, and as wood rather rickety (and a fire-hazard). —Gaoyadeo was an indian word.
  • “Sandy Hill” is the religious boys camp in northeastern Maryland I worked at 1959-‘61. In 1960 the senior-staff at Sandy Hill was from Delaware Valley Christian School near Philadelphia, and they made a mess. They were into secret debauchery and sin. The camp became a stinkpot, and needed serious cleaning up.
  • “Mahz-N-Wawdzz” (Myers & Watters [“meyers and waters”]) is the Philadelphia-based painting contractor I worked at during every summer I was at college. They painted high steel; e.g. water-towers and in oil-refineries. —Pronounced that way because that was how my Greek supervisor pronounced it.
  • RE: “He allowed his wife to wear jewelry, for heaven sake.......” —As a Wesleyen Methodist college, Houghton was against the wearing of jewelry.
  • A “tri-carb 348” is a 348 cubic-inch V8 engine with three two-barrel carburetors; a factory hot-rod. —Chevrolet “Impala.”
  • The “Steppin’ Out” magazine was a Thursday-only production of the Messenger newspaper. “Night Spots” was a listing of area night-clubs, and what live music they had, if any. It was a free ad, but a struggle. I was forever pulling teeth. I would overwrite the previous week’s file on my home computer — saved a lotta cranking. I hated doing it, but it was rewarding in print. The Steppin’ Out editor seemed satisfied with what I turned in, although I always felt I wasn’t giving it justice.
  • Tuesday, April 22, 2008

    “Coach”

    “Oh Michelle (Amazon-Lady),” said Coach yesterday (Monday, April 21, 2008) at the Canandaigua YMCA; “I just love your nail-polish.”
    “It’s called ‘elephantistic pink.’”
    I’ve blogged about “Amazon-Lady” before, but not “Coach.”
    Both are YMCA employees, but Amazon-Lady, though a nice person, is the farthest thing from feminine allure.
    She can also snap at people, or bite off their heads. She also is extremely muscle-bound, her laugh is very macho, and her face seems to be twisted into a permanent sneer.
    I’ve interacted with Amazon-Lady a little, but generally don’t. She’s a nice person, but can be nasty.
    “Coach” I haven’t said anything about.
    She’s in her 30s, or maybe even 40s, and more attractive.
    But she’s obviously dyeing her rigidly coiffed blond hair, and is also muscle-bound, although a little plump — but not much.
    She has brown roots.
    Well okay; all that could be accepted if she weren’t overbearing and strident.
    She also is the one people get assigned to if they need coaching; which is why I call her “Coach.”
    But I couldn’t accept someone bellowing and shrieking at me.
    “You can do it. Nine-eight-seven-six........”
    Coach was once yelling at some stressed-out female teenybopper on the treadmill next to me.
    “Now, ramp it up!” she shouted. “Nine-eight-seven-six........ Okay, chest up. Keep pumping, girl!”
    UGH! If anyone ever did that to me, I’d tell them to get stuffed.
    The lady who had the stroke is apparently using her as a rehab coach.
    “I have to rest up,” she says. “She’s tough.”
    Years ago when I was running and driving bus I used to take home this wiry little gentleman who was the father of the kid that was winning many of the local footraces.
    As such, we’d always shoot the breeze about what races I had run.
    One night I mentioned a recent race, a race his son had won, was horrible: cold and windy and rainy — that the weather had slowed my time.
    “Well, everyone had the same conditions,” he snapped.
    “Sure Coach,” I thought to myself as he stepped off.

    “You oughta see my toes,” Michelle said.
    “Yes Michelle,” said Coach. “We all know you have the cutest feet in all of New York State.
    “—Don’t laugh,” I thought to myself.

  • I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
  • For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y.
  • Monday, April 21, 2008

    The Price is Right

    Today (Monday, April 21, 2008) I managed to get to the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA earlier, so managed to miss the “Bellicose & Bellering” (“Young & Yelling;” WHATEVER).
    What I got instead was “The Price is Right.”
    Bespeckled Drew Carey stunned at the antics of his contestants.
    I don’t know what is going on, or how the game proceeds, but apparently there are two contestants, each behind glittering lecterns out of the ‘50s.
    “Showcases” are presented, and each contestant gives an estimate of the total worth of their showcase.
    The winner, so it seems, is the person who doesn’t overvalue — i.e. it looks like you can undervalue, but not overvalue. (Who knows if both contestants undervalue.)
    One contestant had a showcase with a new Mustang, a Dell laptop ‘pyooter, and a Kawasaki Ninja motorbike. He valued the whole package at $40,000.
    His $40,000 estimate showed up in a glitzy marquis on the front of his lectern.
    Contestant number-two had a showcase with cushy leather sofa-sectionals, elegant wooden cabinets, and beige wall-to-wall carpet.
    Contestant number-two made his estimate, but I forget what it was, except he was short by over 8,000 smackaroos.
    $40,000 was over, so that guy lost.
    Number-two won; he got the redecorating showcase.
    Pandemonium ensued.
    All-of-a-sudden a 300-pound greaseball rushed out of the audience and bounded up on stage.
    He did a flying leap over the coffee-table, and landed on the sofa.
    Amazingly the sofa stayed put. It didn’t crumble under the 300-pound flying leap.
    It was one of those fabulous moments TV has become, and all on high-definition TV.

  • “Young & Yelling” is “The Young and The Restless” TV soap-opera.
  • Sleepers awake

    I’ve noticed that different parameters seem to apply for how and when this here rig goes to sleep.
    —1) The thing that seems to override everything is the sleep-function of the monitor, which I can’t set. It seems to be separate from the ‘pyooter.
    Sleep on the monitor is black; no image.
    Five minutes of inactivity, or whatever it is, and the screen goes black.
    Although I’ve noticed that certain apps seem to override this.
    I thought at first it was a browser continuously updating a web-cam, but even then the monitor has gone to sleep.
    So I don’t know. Observation of monitor sleep-patterns has been scattershot.
    I also have noticed the monitor not going to sleep displaying my weather-radar.
    That’s a continuous update too.
    So who knows? (Maybe I had the printer or scanner on, and that killed the monitor-sleeper.)
    —2) This ‘pyooter has a sleep-function too, or so it seems; and I can set that.
    I’ve noticed two behaviors:
    -a) With no apps on, and no activity, it sleeps in 10 minutes (so the monitor proceeds it).
    That is, the hard-drive stops whirring, and all ya see is the on-light.
    But the monitor is out too, so all ya see is a black screen.
    In this condition it often won’t wake up, a condition the ‘pyooter-guru at the mighty Mezz blamed on wonky hardware.
    If it does, I hafta reboot; and the time is wrong until it gets the Boulder signal.
    The ‘pyooter has also gone to sleep with apps on — certain apps I guess.
    But I don’t know what, although it doesn’t seem to be a browser or my Appleworks.
    -b) Sometimes the ‘pyooter goes to sleep, and the monitor hasn’t — in which case a day-glo screensaver from the ‘60s displays. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. I’ve seen this a few times. —I could change it if I wanted.
    But I never have any idea what kept the monitor going.

    And I never know what in the wide, wide world is going on, except to fire up browsers and Appleworks as soon as I see the OS-X screen. That way the ‘pyooter doesn’t die and need rebooting.

  • “Apps” are computer software applications.
  • RE: “‘Pyooter-guru at the mighty Mezz........” —The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had. The “‘Pyooter-guru” was the Information-Technology guy, the computer-guy.
  • RE: “Time is wrong until it gets the Boulder signal........” —This computer gets its exact time over the Internet, a time-signal from the atomic clock in Boulder, Colo.
  • “Appleworks” is the Apple wordprocesser, comparable to Microsoft Word, although in my case much easier to use. It doesn’t reward mistypes with trips into the ozone like Word does, and having had a stroke (October 26, 1993), my keyboarding is sloppy. This blog-post was done with Appleworks-5.
  • “OS-X” is the operating-system this computer uses.

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  • Saturday, April 19, 2008

    Git-R-Dun

    The other night (Thursday, April 17, 2008) I set out for Rochester to attend the regular monthly business meeting of Local 282 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, my old bus-union at Transit.
    I turned north (right) from our driveway onto State Route 65, and about 500 yards north of our house is Cycle Enterprises, which has been there since time immemorial, and was there long before we built our house.
    Cycle Enterprises, under a different owner then, was where Peter Strohmier (“STROH-meyer”) bought the fabulous 1980 Ducati 900SS I ended up with.
    As I approached Cycle Enterprises, a grizzled road-warrior pulled his Harley GeezerGlide right out in front of me.
    Didn’t look or anything.
    Yowzuh! I slammed on the brakes.
    Thank goodness I was driving the Bathtub. The CR-V would have locked the rear.
    Road-warrior glanced in his mirrors — like “where’d he come from?”
    I waved hello. “Yeah, I just saved your butt. Avoided plowing into ya,” I said.
    “Perhaps ya could look next time before pulling onto the highway.”

    Someone on a Gold Wing did that to me once while I was driving bus.
    Cut right in front of me.
    I opened my window and said I rode motorbike myself, and never did anything like that.
    Years ago I entered an expressway on-ramp on the Ducati.
    A Sukuki rocketbike was ahead of me, and he screwed it to the wall.
    Blasted onto the expressway without looking at all.
    I can’t do that.
    I looked first, and merged safely into expressway traffic.

    We continued the short way up Route 65 to the four-way intersection where 65 turns west (left). —The intersection has been graded to allow continuous turns on 65 without stopping.
    We were both going straight onto Pittsford-West Bloomfield Road, and GeezerGlide accelerated noisily away, ending up about 200 yards in front of me.
    I noticed I was being closely followed by a large dark-maroon Chevy pickup, probably driven by his wife. Like they had driven to Cycle Enterprises to pick up his bike, which had been in for service.
    Pittsford-West Bloomfield Road eventually crosses County Road 14, and GeezerGlide was signaling to turn right. So was the pickup.
    County Road 14 is a stop-sign, so I caught up with GeezerGlide.
    But GeezerGlide wasn’t stopped for traffic. He was stopped to let his wife catch up.
    I came up behind GeezerGlide and noticed a small chrome license-plate surround.
    “Git-R-Dun” it said.

  • “Git-R-Dun” is the slogan of all over-confident problem-solving engineers, who claim they can solve all the world’s problems; like my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He was trained as an engineer.
  • For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. As a bus-driver, I was a union employee.
  • We built our house in 1989, and moved into it in 1990.
  • a “Ducati 900SS” is a motorcycle — pretty much a sport-bike; a racer. “Ducati” (“Dew-KAH-tee”) is the manufacturer, Italian. At that time, the 900SS was the only bike like that. Ducatis are still made.
  • “GeezerGlide” is what I call all Harley Davidson ElectraGlide cruiser-bikes. My loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston has a very laid back Harley Davidson cruiser-bike, and, like most Harley Davidson riders, is 50 years old. So I call it his GeezerGlide.
  • “The Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub. “The CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV.
  • A “Gold Wing” is a large Honda touring motorcycle.
  • Friday, April 18, 2008

    Another monthly meeting......

    .....of Local 282 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, my old bus-union at Regional Transit Service in Rochester, drifts into the filmy past.

    My attending these shindigs has become a joke, since as a retiree — i.e. no longer an active Transit employee — I can’t vote or otherwise transact union business.
    It’s gotten so all my attendance has become is support for my union.
    All I can do is discuss things — like if I could actually get the floor amidst all the yelling and screaming — or hold my own when I already have difficulty speaking.
    Even when I was an active Transit employee (a bus-driver) I never said much at union meetings.
    People would jump up and butt in, yelling and screaming — once I shouted down a bellowing maniac.
    He was threatening to punch me out, but I told him first he’d have to catch me; and he was way overweight, and that was back when I was running.
    Once people were complaining at perceived anti-union letters in my “282-News;” but I was like the Messenger newspaper.
    If someone went to all the trouble to write a letter, it should be published, no matter what.
    Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
    Finally, I’d had enough.
    “That newsletter is keeping me up until 3 a.m. the nights before publication.” I said.
    “If someone else wants that, they’re welcome to it.”
    All-of-a-sudden, deafening silence.
    Without me, there would be no 282-News. It was voluntary.
    That was about the extent of my prior vocal participation in union-meetings.
    Last night (Thursday, April 17, 2008) they voted on a proposed arbitration — one of about five, and each involves a member assessment.
    For years if there was a paycheck discrepancy, the effected employee took it up with the “dispatchers” right there in the Drivers’ Room. They were the ones processing time-sheets, so they were more on top of things.
    But Transit, in its infinite wisdom, decided to no longer allow employees to dispute their paychecks with “dispatchers” in the Drivers’ Room. Now they had to trudge over to the Great White Tower, and take it up with the Payroll Department. —Or call an extension.
    Call the extension and ya got a tape-recorder.
    “Next it will be India,” I commented — the onliest word I’ve ever said at a union-meeting since my stroke 15 years ago. (“We are so, so sorry. We are working on it. Your issue will be resolved sometime in the next 20 years; I promise.”)
    Transit was shoving their union-employees — what else is new — if Transit mucked up a paycheck, call the number — they never fixed it.
    Another item-of-business was a proposed bylaw change; shuffling the duties and titles of local union-officials.
    Currently there are two full-time local union officials: the president and the Business Agent/Treasurer.
    They get along fairly well, but can be at loggerheads.
    The bylaw-change would rearrange duties so the Prez became President/Business Agent, and the current Business Agent/Treasurer would become just Treasurer — more in tune with current nationwide practice.
    The current Business-Agent allowed this was shoving a lot more work on the Union Prez, and that —A) the Prez should get paid more, and —B) the Treasurer could become only part-time.
    “Checks-and-balances,” someone bellowed. “Combine all the responsibilities in one union official, and we have ‘checks-and-balances.’”
    “WHAT?” I thought, as I turned around.
    “Blah-blah-blah-blah; checks-and-balances.”
    I didn’t say anything, but finally the number-one driver on the seniority-list got up and commented “since when does having only one full-time union-official institute a ‘check-and-balance?’ With two union-officials we have a ‘check-and-balance.’ This is baloney.”
    “Hell-oooo,” I thought. “Thank you, Terry; ya said what I thought. ‘Checks-and-balances’ is a pretty phrase, but it ain’t ‘checks-and-balances.’”
    “Nevertheless, I’m voting for it,” someone shouted from the dais.
    “What right do you have to say anything?” someone shrieked.
    “That’s just my opinion,” dais-man answered.
    The bylaw-change was voted down, but only by one vote; a two-thirds majority is required.
    “The madness continues,” dais-man commented. “Never getting anything done because the two union-officials are at loggerheads. E.g. ‘not my responsibility.’”

  • For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
  • The “Messenger newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had — it was after my stroke; i.e. well after Transit.
  • “282-News” is a voluntary union newsletter I did during my final year at Transit. I did it with Word on my computer, and it was a resounding success. My newsletter got circulated to all local politicos, and since Transit is a public company, it caused weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
  • “Dispatchers” was the official title for managers that assigned bus-driving work. They were “behind-the-window,” walled off from the Drivers’ Room.
  • Thursday, April 17, 2008

    MORE INSANITY.....

    —1) ......ON THE SILENT PLASMA-BABIES AT THE VAUNTED CANANDAIGUA YMCA

    I am blasting away on the exercise-bicycle at the Canandaigua YMCA.
    The “Young and the Screaming” is on one of the three silent wall-mounted plasma-babies, closed-captioned of course.
    Young Victor Studley nonchalantly enters the steamy boudoir of mega-cleavage Victoria.
    “Hi Vick!” she bubbles.
    “You’ll never guess,” she says. “My so-called friend Sabrina is having an affair with our dad.”
    “That’s not possible,” Victor loudly exclaims. “They’re 30 years apart.”
    “She said he’s very charming,” Victoria says.
    “I hope they’re not sleeping together,” Victor says, making tortured faces symbolizing angry frustration.
    “UGH! I don’t even wanna think about it,” Victoria screams.
    (A little background here — go back about three scenes.)
    Victoria and Sabrina are sharing a cushy leather sofa in Sabrina’s house in front of a crackling fire.
    “I think I should tell you; Victor and I are seeing each other.” (That’s gray-haired Victor Sr., Victoria’s dad.)
    “Whore!” Victoria screams. They start fighting — arms flailing and canines bared.
    “Outta my house!” Sabrina screams.
    Victoria departs outside into the frigid cold without a coat and lights a cigarette, looking dazed and confused.
    (Fade to black. Time for an ad.)
    Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson are sitting together in a cushy leather coach on a beach. Seagulls fluttering overhead; waves crashing.
    “We don’t agree on much,” Sharpton says.
    “You tell ‘em, Al,” quips Robertson.
    “But we do agree on one thing. Tell ‘em, Rev,” says Sharpton.
    “And that’s saving the planet.”
    An ocean-wave partially inundates the sofa.
    (Cut to next ad.)
    We zoom in on a small nugget of coal. A three-pronged electrical cord gets plugged into the nugget, and the whole scene lights up.
    “Clean coal,” the announcer says: “America’s clean energy-source.”
    “Um,” I think; “there’s a whole area of Wyoming dedicated to ‘clean coal.’ Giant earth-movers are transferring overburden, so other giant machines can harvest the giant layers of coal underneath. It’s called the Powder River basin.”
    15 or more 100-car trainloads of coal per day lumber out of the area to deliver this so-called “clean coal” to gaping generators with incredible insatiable demand.

    —2) ON THE HIGHWAY.....

    I have left mighty Weggers, and am driving up the Canandaigua 5&20 bypass, which was built years ago to get traffic out of Canandaigua, and avoid a railroad-overpass with only 10-feet 6-inch clearance. That bridge has already skinned the tops off quite a few trailers, usually distributing their load all over the surrounding area.
    Every few months the mighty Mezz runs a trailer-into-bridge shot. Last time I wasn’t carrying my camera, and I was on-the-scene even before the local constabulatory.
    I am accelerating up the hill in the right-most of two lanes, and a tiny yellow Suzuki sport motorbike is in the passing-lane; well back.
    All of a sudden, a plaintive “Beep!”
    I glance in my outside left rearview mirror, and Grandpop (who is the spitting image of George A. Palmer — “Earthly friends may prove untrue.......”) is merging his faded Chrysler minivan back into my lane, riding my rear-bumper like the Intimidator.
    Suzuki has managed to get him to stop merging into him.
    Grandpop looks angry and embarrassed: embarrassed that he made such a mistake, and angry that motorbikers even exist. “Them Ne’er-do-wells; too independent, I tell ya! Shouldn’t even be on the road.”
    Suzuki passes, changes lanes (quite safely), and accelerates away.
    Sounded like one of them V-twins; probably the one I saw a couple years ago at Lake Country Physical Therapy. Small and modern looking, but still twin exhaust cannons.
    Grandpop then passes in his minivan, continuing up the road with his left-turn signal still flashing, probably from his mistaken encounter with the motorbike.
    Grandpop is wandering all over the highway — he’s in both lanes; but at least he passed without sideswiping me.
    Sure enough, on his rear-bumper, “Bush-Cheney ‘04.”

  • “Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”
  • “Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
  • “5&20” is the main east-west road through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live.
  • The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had.
  • “George A. Palmer” was the founder of the Morning-Cheer Christian radio broadcast; popular in the Philadelphia area in the ‘50s. His radio theme-song was the hymn “Jesus Never Fails,” which starts “Earthly friends may prove untrue.......” He was fat, ornery and difficult. He also founded Sandy Hill, a Christian Boys camp in northeastern Maryland I frequently attended, and was on the staff of. (He also founded a Girls camp, a camp for teenagers, and a conference-ground for adults. —Everything but the camp for teenagers was on Chesapeake Bay; which meant great canoeing.)
  • An “intimidator” is a tailgater, named after Dale Earnhardt, deceased, the so-called “intimidator” of NASCAR fame, who used to tailgate race-leaders and bump them at speed until they let him pass.
  • Right after retirement, I was a patient at “Lake Country Physical Therapy” in Canandaigua.
  • RE: “Exhaust cannons.........” —About six years ago, the standard fitment for motorcycle exhaust was large cannon-shaped mufflers mounted beside the rear tire. Now it’s more often under the seat, to allow a motorcycle to be tilted even farther into a turn.
  • “Bush-Cheney ‘04” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker for reelection. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right.
  • Adventures with Killian


    Linda with dog leaving Livonia Veterinary Hospital. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

    Tuesday, April 15, 2008 was chemo treatment number-three for our beloved dog, this one at Livonia Veterinary Hospital (pictured).
    Livonia Veterinary Hospital bought Honeoye Falls Veterinary Hospital (the one we went to), so they are responsible for Killian’s cancer treatments.
    Killian’s first two chemos were at Honeoye Falls Veterinary Hospital but administered by Livonia Veterinary Hospital vets.
    They apparently come to Honeoye Falls Veterinary Hospital fairly regularly, now that the two practices are affiliated.
    It looks like Honeoye Falls Veterinary Hospital is the larger operation.
    Honeoye Falls Veterinary Hospital was independent until one of the vets, the business-maven, died in a motorcycle crash.
    He was very good, and always asked about my Ducati jacket.
    Getting to Livonia Veterinary Hospital meant getting up at 5:20 a.m., so we could eat breakfast, get the garbage out (it was garbage-day), and get there by 7:45 a.m. to drop off the dog.
    Livonia Veterinary Hospital is 15-20 miles away out in the sticks, so I was allowing 45 minutes for the trip, which was 15 minutes too much.


    Livonia, Avon & Lakeville #38 (sans number-plate) ducks under Bronson Hill Road with southbound excursion. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the Spotmatic.)

    They had me driving down Bronson Hill Road, and the old railfan knows Bronson Hill Road used to cross the old Erie branch to Rochester on a rickety wooden bridge.
    The Erie’s Rochester branch ran from the mainline through Corning to Rochester, and a sizable segment was taken over by the Livonia, Avon & Lakeville shortline railroad.
    The Erie Rochester branch ran south out of Rochester through Avon (“AH-von,” not “AYE-von” [the makeup]), and then went up the hill through Livonia and continued south to Corning.
    South of Livonia the line was abandoned, and at first the LA&L was Avon to Livonia.
    There also was a short branch to Lakeville near Livonia — Lakeville is at the north end of Conesus lake, one of the Finger Lakes.
    LA&L got a corn-syrup processor (or transfer depot) to locate in Lakeville, so they bring in tank-cars of corn-syrup that get transferred to trucks.
    That corn-syrup facility is the main shipper on LA&L and has been for years.
    At first LA&L ran a passenger excursion service, and even had steam-locomotives.
    First was #17, but that was scrapped.
    Then was #38, and I think that is still running in Gettysburg.
    We rode that excursion and a took a slew of black & white photographs. It was during my attempt to freelance stuff.
    They also had a small 44-ton diesel, and many excursions were behind it.
    But it was gigantic Lionel set; a chance for the LA&L boys to play with steam-locomotives.
    It also was a very funky ride — very rural. Trains with the 44-tonner would only be two coaches; the steam-engine might rate 4-5.
    Avon to Livonia was all uphill; a very sharp 2% grade. (Once the brakes failed on a freight-car, and it coasted all the way from Livonia to Avon.)
    The line turned east south of Avon into the Triphammer Valley to attack the grade. It passed a small swimming-hole where swimmers often swam nude.
    In tiny South Lima (about 10 houses —“LYE-ma,” like lima-beans; not “LEE-ma”) there was a siding where LA&L stored old passenger equipment they never got around to using. It was more derelict than what they had.
    After a couple years the passenger-excursion service went defunct, and the LA&L went freight-only.
    LA&L also abandoned the line to Livonia, since there weren’t any businesses other than the passenger excursions.
    LA&L has since bought the Erie Rochester branch from Avon clear up to Henrietta, plus the old Lehigh-Valley Rochester branch from there to a lumber-yard in south Henrietta, both from Conrail.
    The Bronson Hill Road bridge was removed, and the cut filled in — right on top of the tracks; they weren’t removed.
    So the only indication the railroad was ever there is the slight hump where the bridge was, the railroad cut on each side, and guard-cables to keep traffic out of the cut.
    The tracks weren’t removed, just abandoned, although now, east of Bronson Hill Road to Livonia the tracks are gone.


    LA&L and grain-elevator at Bronson Hill Road. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

    Interstate-390 crosses the Triphammer Valley on a giant concrete viaduct, and also crossed the LA&L line to Livonia.
    I noticed the railroad looked used.
    And now I see why. A large grain-elevator was located on Bronson Hill Road where it crossed the LA&L. LA&L is shipping grain hoppers out of that elevator. They probably solicited the business.
    So now the Livonia line is still active to Bronson Hill Road, where it stubs at the fill-in. It’s active because of that grain elevator.
    I didn't notice the old LA&L cut as I drove to the Livonia Veterinary Hospital, but did notice the grain elevator.
    We had to return a different way, because we had to go to a doctor’s appointment at Wilmot as a follow-up of Linda’s cancer-treatment.
    We were told her treatment was a resounding success — everyone was all smiles, except me, who was probably the happiest. I’m left with my old friend, although I communicate this poorly. I suppose it’s the Hughes tendency to melt into the background, and not show emotion. My paternal grandfather was like that. (It also could be compromised speech.)
    My Aunt May, his only remaining child, always calls him “a class act.” My father (who was the oldest) and his younger brother are both dead — there were only three; and MayZ, the Depression child, was a “mistake.”
    Returning from Wilmot we got a cellphone call from the Livonia vet while driving.
    They said our dog’s blood-count was too low to administer the Doxorubin; but they could administer the Vincristine — which we had to pick up at the Medicine-Shoppe in Canandaigua.
    So we changed direction toward Canandaigua, after which we would truck over to Livonia Veterinary Hospital, about 20 miles from Canandaigua.
    After leaving off the Vincristine, we returned from Livonia Veterinary Hospital on Bronson Hill Road. I noticed the grain-elevator was at the old Bronson Hill Road overpass location, and that the LA&L was serving it on what remained of the old Livonia line.


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

    On the way to Livonia Veterinary Hospital I also drove through Livonia, and noticed the old Livonia railroad station was still standing.
    That afternoon, when we went to Livonia Veterinary Hospital at 6:20 p.m. to pick up our dog, the light was perfect, so I drove back through Livonia to shoot the old railroad-station. I guess there’s a restaurant in it now, and the tracks are long-gone.
    But the old railroad-crossing crossbucks are still up where a side-street used to cross the tracks. We rode excursions out of that station.
    Livonia, was, and still is, a railroad-town. A gigantic painted mural of old #17 is still on an outside wall.

  • “Killian” is our dog, a rescue Irish-Setter. He has lymphatic cancer.
  • 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 “Spotmatic” is my old Pentax Spotmatic 35mm film camera I used about 40 years, since replaced by the Nikon D100 digital camera.
  • “Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. She has lymphatic cancer. It’s treatable — she will survive.
  • In the early ‘80s I had a fabulous 900SS “Ducati” motorcycle; they’re made in Italy. —It was essentially a race-bike.
  • “Livonia, Avon & Lakeville #38” was a small Consolidation (2-8-0) steam-locomotive — a teapot, but fairly strong. #17 was a small Mikado, 2-8-2.
  • “Corning,” New York. The Erie Railroad ran across the southern part of the state — as such it was more hilly and challenging.
  • “Rochester,” N.Y.
  • RE: “The Finger Lakes........” —Western N.Y. has a number of long skinny lakes that look like a gigantic hand was pressed upon the land. Conesus is one, but fairly small.
  • RE: “44-ton diesel.....” —Years ago the limit for a one-person crew on a railroad locomotive was 44 tons. So General Electric marketed a 44-ton diesel railroad locomotive. They were too small to move many cars.
  • RE: “2% grade........” —For every 100 feet forward, the grade rises two feet. A 2% grade is fairly steep; 1% manageable, although it will slow the train, and may require helpers. 4% is nearly impossible. The limiting factor is always the immense weight of a train. The goal is always to make a railroad as level as possible.
  • “Henrietta” is a suburb south of Rochester.
  • The “Lehigh-Valley” railroad ran from Buffalo to New York City, partly in northeastern Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh River valley. It ran south of Rochester, and has been abandoned. It built its extension to Buffalo when anthracite (coal) traffic began to peter out, so it could tap into bridge traffic from the west. (“Bridge traffic” is outside generated traffic from feeder-lines; in this case west of Buffalo.) The extension ran northwest from Sayre, Pa. to Geneva, N.Y., and then west to Buffalo. It was an excellent railroad, but not much originating lineside traffic, and it avoided all the major cities.
  • “Conrail” was first a government-funded corporation, that inherited all the eastern railroads after they went bankrupt — mainly Penn-Central. Later it went public, but then sold to Norfolk Southern Railroad and CSX Transportation. Norfolk Southern got most of the ex-Pennsylvania Railroad routes, and CSX got the old New York Central. (The mighty Pennsylvania Railroad 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. New York Central was also quite large.)
  • “Wilmot” is Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester. My wife got her diagnosis and treatment there.
  • “MayZ” is my father’s younger sister May; born in 1930. Her older brother Robert gave her the name MayZ. Robert was the second; my father “Tom” was the first.
  • “Doxorubin” and “Vincristine” are anti-cancer chemo drugs, Doxorubin the most toxic.
  • “The Medicine-Shoppe” is a pharmacy in Canandaigua. It also has an animal pharmacy.
  • “Crossbucks” are the X-shaped warning sign where a highway crosses a railroad at the same grade. They were originally cross-nailed wooden planks: “crossbucks.” —Later flashing warning-lights were added, often a clanging bell, and often gates that lowered and blocked the highway.
  • Monday, April 14, 2008

    Today’s follies

    —1) Old age
    Returning from Weggers after the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA, I had to hit the so-called “Medicine Shoppe” to pick up tomorrow’s chemo for Killian.
    A filthy maroon LeSabre pulls into the handicap-slot, which I avoided because I don’t have a handicap-tag.
    THE RACE IS ON: who will get to the door first? But I have it all over the LeSabre driver; she’s bog-slow.
    So I hold open the door after entering; had to hold it a long time, the lady was very slow — nearly hobbling.
    “Oh, thank you. Thank you very much,” she said. “Old age, I guess.”
    “I bet I’m older than you,” I commented. “64.”
    “Yep, you win,” she said. “56.”

    —2) Git-R-Dun
    As far as I know the law says the right-most stopped car at a four-way stop is to go first.
    I’m at a four-way stop in Canandaigua, and a large rusty metallic-beige Caprice station-wagon is at the intersection, stopped on my left.
    Well okay, I know that law is usually avoided, but the Caprice is setting up to make a right-turn, unsignaled of course.
    I start across the intersection, but the Caprice lunges in front of me, glowering intimidator giving me the finger.
    WOOPS! Expect anything! I drove bus; and I know how it is.
    Granny used to pull out of the mall in front of me: “Oh look, Dora. A bus! A bus! Pull out!” (Stopped nine tons of hurtling steel on a dime without throwing passengers outta the seats.)

  • “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
  • “Killian” is our dog; a rescue Irish-Setter. He has lymphatic cancer, and is being treated for it with chemo.
  • A “glowering intimidator” refers to Dale Earnhardt, deceased, the so-called “intimidator” of NASCAR fame, who used to tailgate race-leaders and bump them at speed until they let him pass.
  • RE: “‘A bus! A bus! Pull out!’ (Stopped nine tons of hurtling steel.........)” —For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
  • Sunday, April 13, 2008

    Smart


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

    My May 2008 Car & Driver magazine has a roadtest of the incredibly tiny Smart Twofour (pictured); in this case a Twofour Passion, the upscale version if the base Twofour.
    It cost a little over $14,000.
    A guy up the street bought one (the car pictured), and supposedly he thinks the world of it.
    C&D more-or-less panned it, mainly because it’s not as frugal as it looks like it should be.
    It gets about 32 mpg, about the same as a Honda Fit, a Toyota Yaris, or a Chevy Aveo, all of which have four seats. The Smart has only two seats. (It’s also in the Aveo/Fit/Yaris price-range.)
    The Smart comes off as a glorified golf-cart, although it’s a real car.
    It’s finished like a car inside, about as roomy as a Cadillac Escalade, and has airbags (including side-curtain).
    It’s tiny but not a golf-cart.
    It only has a 70-hp three-cylinder engine in the rear driving the rear tires, which like all are only 15-inch.
    Car & Driver also says the tranny, which is automatic (although it can be shifted manually) is laughable. —That mere operation requires incredible concentration.
    As a result it’s kind of slow.
    And the engine requires pricey 91-octane fuel. The cheapest, which I use in our cars, is 87-octane. My motorbike and the mowers get 93.
    But the average city parking space could accommodate three+ Smarts.
    Too bad the current rule is one car per parking-space.
    I’d be interested if it were All-Wheel-Drive, but it’s not.
    Furthermore, where do I put my dog?

  • 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.
  • “Tranny” equals transmission.

    Labels:

  • Saturday, April 12, 2008

    Yesterday’s notes.......

    —1) LEIF’S

    Yesterday morning (Friday, April 11, 2008), after having the dreaded Hairman fix my hair, I visited Leif’s Mower-Service, not far from our home.
    The intent was to pick up my mower-blade that I turned over to Leif’s months ago for sharpening. —I’ll probably be needing it soon.
    Leif’s is a rather ramshackle affair, built by old man Leif long ago. It also is where I bought my Husqvarna zero-turn. (Leif’s is a Husqvarna outlet.)
    I think I’ve seen old man Leif, but he’s retired, and the shop is now being run by his son.
    His son is also a railfan, and collects and sells model trains out of the shop. There is a large sign of the Lionel lion in the shop — Lionel trains are the perfect gift for ‘50s honkey-boys.
    The younger Leif, who I think’s name is Dan, is the one I got to go to Horseshoe Curve.
    And we have heard about it ever since.
    His wife accosted Linda at the West Bloomfield post-office, and they are ever grateful I got them to go there.
    I also gave them the web-cam address, and like me they have it on all the time. Like me they are also familiar about how bad it is: e.g. the messy housing, the lady-bugs, and auto-focus on housing rain-drops instead of the tracks.
    They also are aware of how wonderful it can be, like when it’s focused on the tracks.
    I fire it up, and usually when I do a train is passing; often two, like one up and one down.
    Nothing at the moment; you’ll see one in a few minutes.
    The guy’s wife even allowed to Linda they were all set to call me up, because a work-crew was working on the tracks.
    AIN’T NUTHIN’ LIKE THE MIGHTY CURVE! Best railfan spot I have ever been to; and I’m glad I dragooned them guys into visiting. They were thrilled!
    So younger Leif, the one who sold me my zero-turn, is busy with a customer. The customer, about 30, is interested in buying a Husqvarna lawn-tractor.
    Dan says Husqvarna has a financing program, that all the guy has to do is apply, be approved, and he gets a new tractor. (I paid cash for mine.) “If it’s a five-year loan, ya just replace the motor if it wears out. Ya still have a working tractor.”
    His wife returned my mower-blade, accompanied by a torrent of yammering about the web-cam.
    Them guys were surprised at the Curve, and I’m not the least bit the surprised.
    AIN’T NUTHIN’ LIKE THE MIGHTY CURVE!
    Starting to walk out with my mower-blade, I turned and addressed the customer — Dan was getting the credit application-form.
    Usually I avoid such encounters since -a) I don’t think its cricket to interrupt a sales-pitch, and -b) my speech may lock up.
    “If you’re thinkin’ of buying a lawn-tractor,” I said; “you should consider a zero-turn.”
    “That thing is cuttin’ my mowing-time in half,” I say.
    “There’s a learning-curve. Took me about two months to get the hang of it, and avoid mowing plants.”
    “But now it’s zip-zip-zip-zip! Done in no time.”
    Dan laughed.
    What I shoulda said was that I had bought the thing at Leif’s. And that I had to run them poor guys through the mill fixing things — that apparently it had been assembled by the Friday-afternoon crew, blew a rotor-fitting, refused to run, etc. etc. I think they musta had to trailer the thing back to shop at least three times. (One-year guarantee.)
    And once I blew a front tire, and Dan had to drop everything to get me back mowing.
    So it’s an even trade; the mighty Curve for my beloved zero-turn.
    Ran all last summer without a hitch — no visits to Leif. Zip-zip-zip-zip!

    —2) DUBYA-STICKER

    We are returning from Strong Hospital in Rochester yesterday afternoon — Linda had had her C-T scan (to verify her lymphoma was in remission).
    We exit the huge parking-garage (wherein I had to apply the old directions Jones), and drive out into the light.
    We proceed up a city-street, and fall in behind a RAV4 stopped at a traffic-light.
    It has a “Bush-Cheney ‘04” sticker in the rear window.
    “Uh-ohhhhhh,” we say in unison.
    “Mothers protect your children,” I say. “Expect madness.”
    The light changes, and the RAV4 bombs into the intersection, but a pedestrian is crossing the street he’s aimed for.
    “STAND BACK!” I shout.
    But the RAV4 stops to let the pedestrian across — totally unexpected. This ain’t Git-R-Dun behavior.
    But the RAV4 stopped smack in the middle of the intersection.
    Thankfully, he’s going a different way then we are. 2004 is four years ago; I thought by now them stickers woulda degraded.

  • “Hairman” is my hair-dresser. I’ve gone to him at least 16-17 years. (My macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, excoriates my hair. I shouldn’t be patronizing Hairman; like my brother I should be having my hair trimmed by HairCrafters at $5 a pop, or use my John Deere riding-mower.)
  • 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.
  • Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan.) —Horseshoe Curve has a web-cam, but it’s awful.
  • “Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. She has lymphatic cancer. It’s treatable — she will survive. Like me she’s retired, but she works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office.
  • I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech.
  • “Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right.
  • Desperate Housewives

    As the days get longer, it’s gotten so that we eat supper around 7 p.m., sometimes earlier, often later.
    It’s the only time we watch TV, the local and national news from 6 to 7 p.m., which we record.
    We watch the recording as we eat, although if it’s 6:45 and the news isn’t finished, we watch the end live.
    So often we begin watching our recorded news after the 7 o’clock program has begun, in this case “Entertainment Tonight.”
    The misadventures of Britney and Lindsay Lohan and Paris and Brad Pitt.
    A TV version of the supermarket tabloids: “Hillary preggers by alien; Jesus returns, and boy is he mad!”
    Sometimes our supper lasts after 8 p.m., into the network feed: Wife-Swap or Dancing with Boobies. (“Too bad she couldn’t finish her dress!”)
    The other night it was “Desperate Housewives.” Apparently “Desperate Housewives,” probably reruns, got moved to an 8 p.m. weekday time-slot.
    Some shrew was noisily excoriating her doting husband, who was confused.
    “Do you think you can do that?!” she hisses.
    “For heaven sake,” I observed; “I never hear talk like that, and I ain’t Adonis.”
    “Well, it wasn’t Ted,” shrew tells the other desperate housewives. “Ted has a tattoo on his back, and this guy didn’t. I’ve seen him at the pool.”
    Desperate housewives all knowingly glance at one another.
    There were girls like the shrew I was interested in at college, but I filtered them out.
    “That does it! I’m leaving!” shrew screams at doting husband, angrily tossing her clothes into an flimsy old open suitcase.
    She stumbles on the long dark staircase to the second floor, and tumbles head-over-heels all the way to the bottom, ending up out cold. (I’ve fallen lots of times, but never ended up unconscious.)
    Doting husband, terrified and confused, calls 9-1-1.
    Why is it the husbands are all kindly, doting gentlemen confused by their screaming housewives?
    I specifically avoided girls like that, no matter how sexually attractive or pretty they were (I could name names).
    I was more interested in the long haul. I even “Dear Johned” a really nice girl because we were on different wave-lengths, and I could foresee trouble.

  • “We” is my wife Linda and I. We recently had our 40th wedding anniversary.
  • “Too bad she couldn’t finish her dress.....” —is from an old Ma & Pa Kettle skit.
  • Thursday, April 10, 2008

    To dye or not to dye

    The other day (Tuesday, April 8, 2008) our 45-minute trip into Strong Hospital in Rochester so Linda could get a C-T scan to verify her lymphoma was in remission came to naught.
    Linda had contrast dye when her first C-T scan was done months ago and developed a rash.
    “Just tell them about it,” her Doctor said, when she reminded him of the rash.
    “You’ll have to be pre-medicated,” a nurse said. “We’ll reschedule your scan so you can do that — how about next week or next month?”
    “My doctor appointment is next Tuesday — I need the scan before that.”
    Around-and-around we went. Finally the C-T scan was scheduled for tomorrow, which dumps my hitting the YMCA. “I’ll call in the prescriptions for your medications.”
    So Linda dutifully went to the pharmacy yesterday (Wednesday) to get the prescriptions but they weren’t there.
    Obviously calling in a prescription is a great effort, or at least it gets put on the back burner.
    I’ve found I have to verify the prescription got called in before stopping to pick it up. —And then I might have to pull teeth to get the prescription called in.
    Then discussion began as to whether the contrast dye was needed at all.
    “I’ve always had it before,” Linda said.
    Around-and-around we went again.
    “We’ll call ya back,” but they never do.
    I remember the huge pile of unfinished junk that kept growing bigger in my desk long ago at the bank.
    People I couldn’t call back, because I had more pressing matters, like a shortage in income accruals from the Note Department.
    Finally it was decided she didn’t need the contrast dye — they’d called the Doctor — so she didn’t need the pre-dye medications.
    But I put my foot down.
    Four 45-minute sojourns (two trips) to Rochester-and-back is enough, especially when the vaunted medical establishment can’t get its ducks in a row.
    If the C-T scan tomorrow comes to naught, and they have to reschedule yet again (which means rescheduling the doctor-appointment), I’m gonna be mad.
    “I’m sorry, I know I should be more diplomatical, but I can’t keep making long trips into Rochester for nothing.”
    Probably a gallon or more of gas gets burned every trip, plus I can’t do anything else, and I have to leave the poor dog alone in the house, and uh, he has cancer.
    Just imagine some poor non-driver having to arrange transportation for all these fruitless jaunts.
    I remember at the Physical-Therapy a poor girl with back-problems having to arrange a livery for every visit, coming-and-going. (The livery was paid for by United Way, but she had to arrange everything.)

  • “Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. She has lymphatic cancer. (It’s treatable — she will survive.) —Our dog, Killian, has lymphatic cancer also, and is being treated for it. It will go into remission but only for about a year.
  • RE: “Which dumps my hitting the YMCA.....” —I work out about 2-3 days a week at the Canandaigua YMCA; it takes about 4-5 hours per day, including the drive (the YMCA is about 25 minutes away).
  • The pharmacy is about 10 minutes away in the nearby village of Honeoye Falls. A trip to the pharmacy uses about a half-hour. I am consumed with trip management, because every errand is on average about 25 minutes away. Errands get combined.
  • Fresh out of college, in the late ‘60s, my first job was as a management-trainee with a large bank in Rochester. It lasted about three years, but I got “laid off” for not being enough of a viper.
  • RE: “Income accruals from the Note Department.....” —Our branch’s Note Department had a daily income-stream (“accrual”) from all the loans (“notes”) it had made. The amount had been figured too small.
  • Shortly after I retired, I was prescribed Physical-Therapy for balance issues resulting from my stroke October 26, 1993; although I retired because of “episodes” of light-headedness I no longer have. (They seem to have been a side-effect of my calcium-blocker blood-pressure medication, which I dropped. The Physical-Therapy suggested getting back in shape was a better way to control blood-pressure, and that calcium-blockers were just a band-aid. [This is what I did.])
  • Wednesday, April 09, 2008

    Monthly Calendar-Report for April 2008

    All my April 2008 calendars are pretty photogenic, except —1) my Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy calendar, which is only worth running because it’s an important train, and —2) my Three Stooges calendar, which is nothing special. (My Norfolk Southern employees calendar is marginal.)


    ZR1. (Photo by Richard Prince [I guess].)

    —A) My All-Corvette calendar is the original ZR1, a special version of the C4, with a special motor.
    The C4 is 1983 — 1996 (what I call the disco ‘Vette), and the ZR1 1990 — 1995.
    Primarily the ZR1 had a special 32-valve four-overhead-cam V8 that wasn’t related to the vaunted Small-Block at all.
    The motor was designed by Lotus, and manufactured by Kiekhaefer Marine (manufacturer of Mercury outboard motors).
    The whole ZR1 package added $31,258 to the $36,785 base cost of the coupe. —The ZR1 was only available as a coupe.
    At that cost, it wasn’t very successful. After all, the Corvette sells mainly to profilers.
    That motor is the motor the Small-Block should have been developed into.
    A 32-valve four-overhead-cam (two per head) could breathe way better than the Small-Block.
    —That is, and remain fairly tractable (streetable).
    Lotus also developed another double-overhead cam motor, the Cosworth two-liter four for the Chevrolet Cosworth-Vega.
    The Vega was a good design as a car (although rust-prone), but had a terrible motor; its all-aluminum (unsleeved) 2.3-liter four with a single overhead cam driven by a toothed-rubber Gilmer belt.
    If the poor thing overheated, the block warped, and the cylinder-bores wore so much it turned into a mosquito-fogger.
    The Vega also suffered from being a downsized Detroit sedan, so had gigantic heavy doors.
    Special body panels were part of the ZR1 package to shroud its gigantic 11-inch wide rear wheels.


    Classic 1932 Ford “Hi-Boy” roadster. (Photo by Peter Vincent.)

    —B) My April 2008 All-Deuce calendar has a classic 1932 hi-boy roadster hot-rod, classic in that it has a much-modified flat-head Ford V8 motor, the motor the first hot-rodders fooled around with.
    “Hi-boy” because it’s a roadster running at normal height (although lowered in the front), yet the fenders have been removed.
    The Flat-head isn’t very sophisticated; little more than a water-cooled Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine multiplied by eight.
    But it was a V8, and they were plentiful and cheap.
    It was Old Henry’s response to more cylinders in cheap cars, and his refusal to build an inline six.
    The Flat-head was introduced in the 1932 model-year, and continued through the 1953 model-year, although enlarged and improved.
    By then overhead-valve engines were becoming the norm, so the lowly side-valve engine, which the Flat-head is, was antiquated.
    Nevertheless, most early hot-rods were souped-up Ford Flat-heads (although the first hot-rods were souped-up Model T fours), and this one has all the speed-equipment gimcracks from that era; e.g. a reground camshaft (allowing longer valve-opening and more abrupt valve-motion), three two-barrel carburetors (better breathing), and special high-compression aluminum cylinder-heads.
    Shade-tree mechanics bent a lot of performance out of the hoary old Flat-head, but the Small-Block Chevy V8 ended that.
    A Small-Block responded well to hot-rodding, and was also plentiful and cheap.
    The Flat-head also suffered from routing hot exhaust gases through the engine-block.
    The exhaust-valves were on the inside of the head, but the outlets outside. (Cadillac had their exhaust outlets on top of their side-valve V8.)
    Billy Gardiner, my boss at Mahz-n-Wawdzz my first summer in 1963, had a ‘53 Ford pickup with a Flat-head, and it liked to overheat.
    He couldn’t boom-and-zoom lest it start running hot.
    The Flat-head also ported the two middle cylinders (per bank) out one outlet; i.e. four cylinders had three outlets.
    (This restricted exhaust flow.)
    The vaunted Small-Block had none of these problems, so the hoary old Flat-head was put out to pasture.
    Rodders began installing the Small-Block in place of their Flat-heads — and the Small-Block Chevy was about the same size.
    Yet it’s nice to see someone maintaining a hot-rod as they were built in the late ‘40s. (I remember getting a hot-rod book as a kid [early ‘50s] and it was suggesting all the speed-equipment on this car — e.g. triple Stromberg two-barrel carburetors.)
    Although I prefer the three-window coupe.
    The car is owned by Bob Stewart, and his father Ed “Axle” Stewart built it.
    “Axle” used to reconfigure front-axles for lowered front ride-height.
    This car has one of his axles — “dropped” at each end.
    Years ago I attended a car-show, and saw a ‘40 Ford coupe hot-rod.
    I was thrilled it had a souped-up Flat-head.


    P51A Mustang “Mrs. Virginia.” (Photo by Philip Makanna.)

    —C) My April 2008 Ghosts WWII warbird calendar has a P51A Mustang.
    As such it doesn’t have the later bubble-canopy or the Merlin engine.
    The P51 Mustang is the result of a juxtaposition of war demand and the moxie of North American Aviation, the airplane’s manufacturer.
    During WWII, the European Allies wanted to bomb behind German lines, and began doing so, but at great loss.
    Escort fighter-planes at that time didn’t have the range to fly all the way to German targets, so the bombers were sitting ducks for German fighter-planes.
    Many Allied bombers got shot down, and a B17 had a crew of 10.
    So Allied Command desired an escort fighter that could fly the whole way on bombing raids.
    At first, people were kicking around the P40 fighter-plane, idea being to improve its maneuverability and range.
    But North American Aviation suggested it could build a better fighter than even the improved P40; viola, the NA-73X, genesis of the P51 (Americans evaluated the XP-51).
    But the first P51 had only the Allison motor — same as the P38. —Nowhere near potential.
    Later the more powerful Rolls-Royce Merlin engine was adapted; same motor that was in the British SuperMarine Spitfire — a real hot-rod.
    Packard took over production of the Merlin in North America, and supposedly they were more reliable than the Rolls.
    WHATEVER; the Merlin made the P51 a hot-rod too, and it was already a great airplane.
    Plus it had the range to accompany bombers inside Germany; with fall-away gas-tanks (“drop-tanks”).
    So the British bought into the P51 — to accompany bombers to German targets and return.
    Later P51s adapted the bubble-canopy, a full plexiglass cockpit canopy in place of the individual window-panes on Mrs. Virginia.
    It made the airplane even more more gorgeous.
    Mrs. Virginia is only a P51A, Allison motor and no bubble canopy.
    But still a great airplane.


    “Hippo,” 1956. (Photo by Mike Usenia.)

    —D) My April 2008 All-Pennsy Color Calendar is two Pennsylvania Railroad I1s Decapods (2-10-0) on the infamous Mt. Carmel ore-train.
    In the ‘40s and ‘50s Pennsy would use four Deks to transport heavy ore-trains over the Mt. Carmel branch in northeastern Pennsylvania to a connection with Lehigh Valley Railroad.
    They were a monstrous sight: two in front and two on the back. The route was mostly uphill so the Deks made a dramatic appearance.
    The whole train would move slowly, with the Deks straining the whole way.
    The I1s Decapod was Pennsy’s freight steam-locomotive up until WWII.
    598 were built; 475 in a single order to Baldwin Locomotive Works.
    The massive standard K4 boiler (which was also used on their 2-8-2 Mikado freighter) was enlarged, but not the firebox-grate which at 70 square feet was large for a Pacific (like the K4), but fairly small for a Dek.
    The Dek had a number of limitations:
    -1) It couldn’t boom-and-zoom. 50 mph was about all it could do. It rode rough (so rough, the crews abhorred them). 2-10-0 with 62 inch drivers is asking for trouble. Drivers that small can’t have enough counter-weighting to offset piston-thrust.
    So up the speed and the engine bounces.
    But a 2-10-0 could have massive tractive effort. Ten drivers are on the rail. Sand the rail and a 2-10-0 is immensely powerful.
    -2) A Dek could run out of steam.
    I have an ancient audio-recording of one stalling in Tyrone, Pa. The line was uphill (the Middle Division), but not very steep. —The poor Dek was puking out.
    The Dek wasn’t SuperPower; that is, an even bigger boiler with a hundred square feet of grate area.
    The firebox atop the drivers also limits combustion area.
    Smaller wheels on a trailing-truck lower the firebox-grate, and increase the combustion area.
    I think the Dek was the first Pennsy engine with feedwater-heat.
    No feedwater-heat meant pumping cold water into the boiler; which reduced steaming capacity.
    And at first they didn’t have fuel-stokers. It took two firemen hand-firing to keep up with coal consumption.
    No stokers reduce steaming capacity.
    Pennsy was loathe to add appliances that could increase steam capacity, figuring such appliances might kablooey.
    Pennsy was also loathe to power two sets of drivers with a single boiler, a concept that flourished on rival Norfolk & Western Railroad, which had an even more challenging route profile than Pennsy.
    Sadly, no real steam-locomotive development was done on Pennsy during the ‘30s, the era of SuperPower and great advances on Norfolk & Western.
    Pennsy was pioneering electrification at that time, and had a surfeit of surplus steam-locomotives.
    They also had plenty of bodies to man smaller engines.
    They were rich enough to doublehead, where Norfolk & Western might run only one crew in a single steam-engine that could match the Pennsy doublehead for output.
    So the Deks lasted until the end of Pennsy steam in 1957.
    Allow for their deficiencies, and they could do a lot of work.
    The Mt. Carmel ore-runs were an excellent application.
    Plod along slowly, snorting and straining.
    “Hippos” is what Pennsy crews called ‘em — because of their huge boilers.
    I never saw any at all. My Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines in south Jersey was not strong enough to support a Dek.
    Sadly, Pennsy did did not save a “Hippo” to its collection of significant steam-engines (now housed at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, Pa.).
    The only remaining Hippo is stored outside near Buffalo. (#4483)
    The twin canisters on the pilot are air-tanks.


    Norfolk Southern freight waits in a siding at night near Salem, Ala. (Photo by Casey Thomason.)

    —E) My Norfolk Southern Employees’ calendar for April 2008 features a Norfolk Southern freight waiting at night in a siding in Alabama next to a flowering Redbud tree.
    What we have here is an old photographer trick; illuminating a train at night.
    O. Winston Link used to set up 89 bazilyun flashbulbs along the Norfolk & Western (Railroad) main and fire them all off together to illuminate a passing train at night.
    This shot takes advantage of a stopped train in a siding.
    The photographer opens the shutter of his digital camera, and illuminates the entire length of the stopped train, one car after another, perhaps with his car headlights.
    He also lit the redbud tree.


    Westbound Aerotrain approaching Altoona, 1957. (Photo courtesy Bob’s Photo©.)

    —E) My Audio-Visual Designs B&W All-Pennsy calendar is an uninspiring picture of the GM Aerotrain.
    The Aerotrain was a flub; it wasn’t strong enough to endure railroad operation.
    The coach bodies were GM bus-bodies, modified to be railroad cars.
    Strong enough to be a bus, but not a railroad car.
    The Aerotrain, glitzy and modern as it was, would fall to pieces underway, crippling the train.
    It was GM’s attempt to break into the passenger-train market, and an attempt to modernize the passenger-train.
    But it made the mistake of thinking it could get by on glitzy styling alone. Other GM entries in the railroad market, particularly diesel passenger and freight locomotives, were a smashing success, but Aerotrain was a failure.
    A few railroads (e.g. Pennsy) got them, but quickly retired them, and went back to regular passenger-train operation, which was on its last legs anyway.

    —F) My Three Stooges calendar is a waste — an outtake from a movie where the Stooges were being tossed out of some guy’s boudoir.
    Curly is looking to the left, mouth gaping.
    And Moe is mugging for the camera, a face that would only work for a second in a movie.
    The Stooges are being themselves.
    Another case of the Stooges coming off better in a movie than a photograph.

  • “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.
  • “Norfolk Southern” is Norfolk Southern Railroad — a merger of Southern Railroad and Norfolk & Western Railroad.
  • Six Corvettes have been made over the years: the first Corvettes — 1953-1962; the early Sting Rays — 1963-1967; the later Sting Rays — 1968-1982; the C4 — 1983-1996; the C5 — 1997-2004; and the C6 — 2005-present. The C6 is the current iteration. —Earlier Corvettes are the C1 through C3. The “C” designation is a fairly recent fan application.
  • 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.
  • “Lotus” is a small British manufacturer of sports-cars. It ran the Formula-One auto-racing series, and won quite a few world championships.
  • “Old Henry” is Henry Ford the first.
  • “Mahz-n-Wawdzz” is Myers & Watters, a Philadelphia-based painting contractor I worked at during the summers of ‘63-’66, as a summer-job while home from college. “Mahz-n-Wawdzz,” because that was how my boss, a Greek, pronounced it. Myers & Watters painted high steel, like water-towers and in oil-refineries.
  • “Dek” is a nickname for the Pennsy Decapod steam-locomotive.
  • The “K4” Pacific (4-6-2) steam-locomotive is the Pennsylvania Railroad’s standard passenger steam-locomotive. They had many.
  • RE: “Enough counter-weighting to offset piston-thrust.......” —The driving-wheels of a railroad steam locomotive have crescent-shaped counterweights to offset the thrust of the piston-rods. The rods are heavy, and induce a vibration, which the back-and-forth thrusting of the piston adds to. Counterweighing can offset this. A small driver can’t have much counterweighting.
  • “SuperPower” was a 1930s marketing-ploy by Lima (“LYE-muh”) Locomotive Works of Lima (“LYE-muh”), Ohio. The goal was incredibly good steaming capacity, which was maximized by a huge boiler and large firebox. —The main result was excellent high-speed running, without running out of steam. It wasn’t really any better at slow speeds, like on mountain grades.
  • A “fuel-stoker” is an augur-shaped screw to move coal from the tender to the firebox. With a high-consumption firebox, you need a stoker.
  • “Route profile” is the gradients of the route. Both Pennsy and Norfolk & Western had mountain grades; N&W even more so.
  • “Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines” is an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading (“RED-ing”) railroad-lines in south Jersey to counter the fact the two railroads had too much track. It was promulgated in 1933.
  • RE: “Air-tanks.....” —A railroad locomotive has an air-compressor to pump air for the air-brakes. Excess air is held in air-tanks.
  • “Altoona” is Altoona, in central Pennsylvania, a main shop town for the Pennsylvania Railroad. It’s at the base of the grade over the Allegheny mountains. It had many large freight-yards, plus shops for maintaining and manufacturing locomotives and cars. Altoona is no longer what it was.