Facebook grammar RULES!

Something was “affected” on the ABC Evening TV news last night (Tuesday, August 30, 2011).
“Affects” (“effects?”) of Hurricane Irene.
“Is that right?” I asked.
Around-and-around we went at the Mighty Mezz, “affect” or “effect.”
“I think it is,” my wife declared, who majored in English at the same college I attended.
“A hurricane would ‘affect’ things.
‘Effect’ usually has a ‘to’ in front of it.”
“The impression I always had,” I said; “was that ‘affect’ related to affecting personality traits.
That ‘effects’ (‘affects’) how I use the word.”
Years ago I had a similar discussion with a grammar authority at the Mighty Mezz, whose opinions I value, my trusted authority on grammar questions.
He attended the same college as me, fair Houghton College in western New York, although he graduated much later than me.
My wife concurred with him.
“A hurricane can ‘affect’ things.”
I was shocked — shocked and appalled (“uh-Pauled”).
He flew in the face of my impression “affect” related to affecting personality traits.
Cue sonorous blasts from all those who majored in English.
Of course this is no consequence to Facebookers.
What does it matter?
“Affect/effect;” they no what I meant (“mint”).
Proper grammar is for wusses.
Facebook grammar rules!

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over five years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)

Belt flying off

(Photo by BobbaLew.)

“67 years old and had a stroke, but I’m gonna fix that little dear,” I said.
Our fantabulous Country-Clipper zero-turn lawnmower has a long pulley-belt to drive its three cutting-rotor blades.
The belt was being thrown every time I engaged it.
A “zero-turn” lawnmower is 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.
The long rotor-belt goes from the back of the mower, where the motor is, to the cutting-deck up front, 48 inches wide.
It’s a big heavy mower, around 700 pounds. I dare not get it stuck.
But I’m mowing at least two acres, perhaps three; and it makes short work of it.
The engine is a giant “professional” Briggs & Stratton, only one cylinder, but overhead-valve, 540 cubic-centimeters of displacement, and rated at 20 horsepower.
The long rotor-belt had obviously stretched over two mowing seasons.
The belt is driven by a magnetic pulley on the motor, much like automobile air-conditioning.
Energize the magnetic pulley, and the cutting-blades start rotating.
Except that belt had stretched enough to make it loose enough to throw off every time I energized the drive-pulley.
Yesterday (Sunday, August 28, 2011) I had a segment of lawn to mow.
I paddled the Country-Clipper out to that segment, and energized the drive-pulley.
ZIP! Off the rotor-belt went.
Not the first time......
I shut off, then got down to make sure everything was routed right, rerouted the belt, started it, and re-energized the pulley.
ZIP! Off it flipped again.
“Oh for crying out loud,” I said.
Shut off again, check the belt routing, restart, and re-energize the pulley again.
ZIP!
“Oh I give up! I guess I’m not mowing this part today.”
I returned the mower to our shed, actually to the driveway to back it in.
But then I noticed a lever that tightened the pulley had multiple mounting holes. One looked like it might pull the pulley tighter.
30 minutes and counting; but if I can get the little dear to work, mowing is about a half-hour.
So I took it all apart, and reassembled to the other mounting-hole.
Check the belt routing, restart, and re-energize the pulley again.
ZIP!
It looked like the alternative mounting-hole wasn’t pulling the pulley any tighter, but I did notice a second hole on the lever for a pin that engaged the pulley-spring.
It would pull the pulley tighter.
45 minutes and counting.
I took all that apart and remounted the spring-pin in the hole that would pull the pulley tighter.
Doing so required two attempts; the lever conflicted with the spring.
But it all stayed together; the belt stayed on the pulley.
VIOLA! I could mow the lawn.
It took almost an hour, but I got the little dear running.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered. I’m age 67.

El Catilina

The October 2011 issue of my Classic Car Magazine has an interesting feature.
Apparently Pontiac considered fielding a car-pickup much like the Ford Ranchero and the Chevrolet El Camino.
They even developed a prototype, and it still exists.
Enough parts were obtained to fabricate three prototypes, but only one was completed.
It required use of the cab-section of a ’59 El Camino, and a Pontiac stationwagon.
The combination car-pickup was very popular in Australia.

1957 Ford Ranchero.

Ford was first to market a car-pickup in this country, the 1957 Ranchero.
The Ranchero was a complete surprise to The General.

1959 Chevrolet El Camino.

They weren’t able to compete until the 1959 model-year: the Chevrolet El Camino.
In my humble opinion, the ’59 Chevrolet was the ugliest Chevrolet ever marketed.
It looks like it was styled by a committee.
An el-cheapo front-end grafted onto gigantic sweeping gull-wing fins.
Such an arrangement looks utterly ridiculous on a DelRay sedan, Chevrolet’s cheapest offering.

Photo by BobbaLew.

The ugliest Chevrolet ever made.

I remember the ’59 Chevy made me sick; ridiculous styling after the fabulous Tri-Chevys of the middle ‘50s. (’55 was best.)
Making the ’59 Chevrolet into a car-pickup wasn’t an improvement.
The ’59 El Camino didn’t rescue the breed.
Nearly all The General’s offerings in the 1959 model-year were ridiculous. —Only the Buick was successful, although obscene.

1959 Pontiac.

This included Pontiac. The ’59 Pontiac is the ugliest Pontiac ever marketed, almost as bad as the ’59 Chevrolet.
Pontiac’s car-pickup was never scrapped; but never came to fruition.
The car-pickup concept was a niche. Not many were selling. The El Camino outsold the Ranchero, and the Ranchero did quite well when it had the market to itself.
But managers at Pontiac realized they’d never do well carving out a small segment of that niche.
Which was a shame, because Pontiac’s car-pickup looked pretty good.
In fact, it’s an improvement on the regular ’59 Pontiac.
And that was despite a hood that looks like it could land a Navy Corsair fighter-plane, and that gigantic piece of glass that served as a windshield.
The infamous “wrap-around windshield,” with its dog-leg that clobbered knees on entry and exit.
The prototype was not a viable automobile.
It could operate, but was a concept-car.
Parts had to be individually fabricated (especially the tailgate), and the insulation was crumpled paper.
That insulation soaked, promoting rust.
Yet the prototype was never scrapped, and was eventually registered.
It went 125,000 miles, most of it as a utility pickup for a college student.
He drove it quite a bit, including out west.
The car was involved in an accident which required replacing the entire front clip.
And it was found during restoration a frame-member had dislodged.
The car is not original. It rides on a recycled stationwagon chassis.
The car also had a lotta rust-damage.
It’s too bad Pontiac never brought the concept to market.
It actually made the ’59 Pontiac look better.

• “The General” is General Motors.

See you in a year

“Your eyes are in fantastic shape, Mr. Hughes,” said Dawn Pisello, my eye-doctor at Eye Care Center of Canandaigua.
A couple days ago, Tuesday, August 23, 2011, was my annual eye exam.
“I think it’s genetic,” I said. “My younger brother is using cheaters, but I think his eyes are as good as mine.
Little-by-little I advance toward cheaters myself, but I don’t feel I need ‘em yet,” I said.
“The font on my computer-screen is the smallest, and I might run into print small enough to need magnification, but that’s rare.”
(I am the only person in my high-school class to not need bifocals, and we graduated in 1962.)
“You’re lucky,” Dawn said. “Slightly nearsighted, but not enough to effect your overall vision.”
“Yes, if need be, I can drive without my glasses, but things are sharper with ‘em.”
“Nearsighted enough to cruise along without bifocals,” she said.
“No macular degeneration, slight cataracts but no change, everything within range.
I can see your floaters, but they don’t obstruct, and they’re only in your left eye.
We repaired that retina-tear with laser a few years ago, and that seems unchanged.
Usually laser repairs prompt cataract development, but I see no change.”
Eye Care Center of Canandaigua is not the vision-care recommended by my Transit retiree club, who also arranged a reduced-price dental care I use.
My club’s eye-care is probably fine, but I tilt toward Eye Care Center of Canandaigua.
That’s because of Heidi Piper, who graduated from the same college I did, Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”) in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. (She’s class of ’87.)
And I could tell. She was very caring and professional. I haven’t met a Houghton-grad yet who wasn’t.
Heidi did my retina-tear repair.
Years ago a previous eye-care discovered a tiny flaw they said was inconsequential.
Eye Care Center of Canandaigua, mainly Pisello, went ballistic.
“That’s a retina-tear,” she exclaimed. “Very serious. It should be repaired.”
Heidi was brought in. She repaired it with a laser.
“Inconsequential,” my previous eye-care said.
And of course Heidi demonstrated the attitude of all Houghton-grads, feet very much on the ground.
I think it was the professors. They weren’t elitists. They cared about we students.
Even the most strident jerks I knew at that college have their feet on the ground.
No high-and-mighty!
So Eye Care Center of Canandaigua wins.
My Transit retirees eye-care might cost less, but it doesn’t have Heidi.
And of course two things happen with every eye-exam:
—1) They dilate your pupils.
I’m pretty much outta commission after that.
Driving home is a hairball.
—2) Most in the waiting-room are aging cripples. People in wheelchairs with oxygen-rigs.
A nursing-home van was parked outside.
So I suppose I’m relief from all those oldsters with eye-problems.
“Define ‘macular degeneration,’” I asked Dawn.
“Yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda. It comes with aging,” she said.
“I’m 67 years old,” I said. “When should I start worrying about it?”
“NOW,” she said. “People 55 and older get macular degeneration.”
“Pups!” I exclaimed.
A third thing is every time I go there I’m worked on by people younger than me.

• “Mr. Hughes” is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.
• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• RE: “Transit retiree club......” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. We have a club for Transit retirees.

Train-chase number eight

20T descends Track Two at Ledges. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

“It’s beginning to make more sense,” I thought to myself.
“Train 13G, I’ll send ya down Two,” said my scanner, snagging instructions by the operator in Alto (“al-toe;” as in the name “Al”) Tower, in Altoona, PA, (“al-TUNE-uh;” also as in the name “Al”), I think. (It coulda been the Pittsburgh dispatcher.)
The guy I chase trains with in Altoona, Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”), had called while I was driving to Altoona.
My cellphone is in my back pocket, and I don’t answer while driving.
A missed call.
I called back after we arrived at Tunnel Inn, the bed-and-breakfast we usually stay at in the Altoona area.
Phil’s wife, who has multiple sclerosis, was having a problem.
She had just had her usual catheter installed, and it was leaking.
If you need explanation of Phil, click this link, and read the first section. It explains Phil.
Phil used to lead all-day train-chases.
He called them “Adventure Tours;” and that was what they were: railfan overload.
I did at least six adventure-tours with Phil driving.
He gave it up; fear of liability suits, and a really nice car he was afraid of messing up.
But he can’t resist: a true railfan.
He agreed to lead me around if I did the driving.
We used to do it for money; me paying him $125 for an all-day train-chase. —The first time, a slow day, we got 20 trains. Another time we got 30 trains over one nine-hour day.
Now we do it as railfans, and I take him out to dinner afterwards.
I still say he just loves doing it, and of course so do I.
I’ve also snagged quite a few fabulous pictures, and Phil showed me some excellent locations.
Some photos were so good I had Kodak make me a photo-calendar.
And now Tunnel Inn, which caters to railfans, asked me to print a slew through Kodak Tunnel Inn could sell.
My first train-chase with me driving instead of Faudi was last February.
We did fairly well, but the snow was almost non-existent. It was warm.
And the light for photography in February is fleeting.
I woulda tried again in May or June, but my wife has cancer.
It’s supposedly not fatal.
It’s treatable.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared.
Things deteriorated seriously in May, and had been getting worse up until then.
My wife was near death, and was admitted to a hospital.
Finally the doctors woke up — all-of-a-sudden action; they were afraid of losing a patient.
Things being what they were, train-chases in May or June, or even July, were clearly impossible.
They saved her; now my wife is fine — like nothing happened.
Chemo was administered that sent her cancer packing.
So far, so good; but who knows the future?
So we agreed on August, with my wife accompanying.
But now the tables were turned; it was Faudi with the problem.
“Don’t feel obligated,” I told him. “This is your wife!
This is a mini-vacation for us,” I said; “and this line is busy enough to do fairly well, even if we don’t get 30 trains with you, plus my scanner is more under control.”
A month ago, without Faudi, and with my siblings, my scanner got nothing.
He can’t resist!
Nurses tended his wife, so he felt confident he could lead us around all day.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“So what’s 13G?” I asked him. “And if I knew where it was, I could probably snag it.”
I had met Phil to get an up-to-date train-schedule. The one at Horseshoe Curve was outta date, he told me. (July 2011 versus October 2010.)
But he had a difficult time printing it.
Computer hairballs. —I know ‘em all to well.
I had this MAC along, and I had two options to get the Internet: Bluetooth from my Smartphone, or Tunnel Inn’s wireless.
Plus the computer throws up Internet from cache, until you refresh.
You hafta know it’s doing that.
Back-and-forth I went: “This is Tunnel Inn’s wireless, MacBook Pro not connected via Bluetooth.”
You have to use guile-and-cunning to make sense of what’s going on.
Off to the Mighty Curve we went, about five o’clock.
We both climbed the 194 steps to the viewing-area without drama. I keep getting older (I’m not in the best of shape). About two months ago my wife fainted after climbing only a one-story staircase in the hospital — wheelchair after that.
Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian would pass about twenty after five.
“07T, westbound on Three, 241.7, CLEAR.”
Hurray; I’m actually getting it — Amtrak’s train-engineer calling out the signals.
It blasted past, and I snagged my first photograph.


Westbound Pennsylvanian at the Mighty Curve. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Then we went to Cresson Springs Family Restaurant, for their trademark Philly cheese-steak sandwich.
Not bad, but I’ve found better.
Too many onions and peppers, and not enough steak and cheese.
Better is Mac’s Philly cheese-steak in nearby Canandaigua, and they import the right rolls.
Cresson Springs doesn’t. You have to eat it with a knife-and-fork.

—Day Two (Friday, August 19, 2011); day of the train-chase
Phil had rousted me about 7:30 at Tunnel Inn while I was eating breakfast on their back deck outside.
Norfolk Southern’s Executive-Business-Train, stored in Altoona when not in use, was coming up The Hill.
I snagged it in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “girl”) but in poor morning light.


Tuxedos top the summit in Gallitzin with the Executive-Business-Train. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

(They’re called “tuxedos” because of their paint.)
It was a unique locomotive arrangement: A-B-A-B.
Phil surmised the train would be split farther west.
The Executive-Business-Train always starts out too early in the morning.
We zagged over to Cresson (“KRESS-in”), so Phil wouldn’t have to meet us at Tunnel Inn — 9 a.m.
Get hopping, as usual, up to Five Tracks, where PA Route 53 crosses the five tracks approaching Allegheny summit at Gallitzin east of Cresson.
Only four tracks are in active use; one (Main Eight) is for storage.
Two tracks at a lower level approach the old Pennsy tunnels at Gallitzin.
The others, at a slightly higher level, approach the old New Portage Railroad tunnel, eventually acquired by Pennsy.
We couldn’t stand where I stood a few years ago, because everything was grown in.
We had to stand on the bridge.
This gets wires and the bridge-girder if you don’t telephoto; so I telephotoed.


A loaded coal-extra (510) approaches the Route 53 overpass. A second coal-extra is stopped. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

We snagged a few, and then Amtrak was in the picture, the eastbound Pennsylvanian, state subsidized, the only passenger-train remaining on the old Pennsy main across PA. —Actually there are two: eastbound and westbound.
The old Pennsy main once had many passenger-trains.
Amtrak was on time.


Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian passes the stopped coal-extra. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

Norfolk Southern seems to bend over backwards to keep Amtrak on time.
Most of the scheduled freight-trains run late, some quite a bit, but Amtrak is on time.
Next we went to — I forget!


Coal-extra 520 eastbound at Lilly. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Doublestack eastbound (20T) on Two at Lilly. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Coal-extra 520 approaches Ledges. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Coal-extra 520 passes and departs Ledges. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Train 37A (mixed freight with helpers) approaches Brickyard crossing in Altoona. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Doublestack train 20R eastbound on Track Two east of Portage. (There was an old SD40-2 in the consist.) (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Train 538, a coal-extra, passes under the signal-bridge at Summerhill. —The two eastbound signal-targets are raised to be visible over a nearby highway bridge. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Coal-extra 538 approaches the summit on Five-Tracks. (The train in the distance is probably stopped for a brake-test before descending The Hill.) (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Train 10G, helpers added, passes the Trash-Train at Five-Tracks. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


PRAMP-PRAMP-PRAMP! Units pass Tunnel Inn on Track Two after a brake-test before descending The Hill. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Too much telephoto (300mm) at Control-Point W (CPW) east of South Fork. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

I’m sure Phil is frustrated by my driving, that I can’t push.
I tell him it’s the fact I drove bus, which made me extremely careful, but we thought later more is at play.
It’s the fact I had a stroke, so don’t have the limits of others.
I have to concentrate extremely hard to not make mistakes, which makes me pokier than the average driver.
I’d been told I’d never drive again.
Nevertheless I do it better than my wife, who is automotively challenged.
As a result of my poky driving, we miss trains we might have gotten if I could push harder.
But I don’t care. —If I miss a train, it’s no great shakes.
I’m not trying to maximize train-count. I can’t push.
During the day we missed eight trains, a record for Phil.
But we sighted 23 trains, some two or more times.
We also managed to beat the UPS train to a location, although it was slowed some by restrictive signals.
That train is priority. It booms-and-zooms.
We saw it pass through Tipton at about 60 mph during a strong thunderstorm downpour, and then we zoomed west.
This involved a long trek over rural roads up The Hill.
As I say, the train was being slowed by restrictive signals. But we were making fairly good time.
It would have beat us without that slowing.
If it had beat us we’d consider it no great loss.
For me to lose it on a curve and smash up my car in the trees is a great loss.
“I’m failing my customers,” Phil said.
“We’re not customers,” I told him. “We’re only doing this for pleasure. 20+ sightings is way more than I got by myself last month with my sister.”
Finally I suggested it wasn’t fair for me to drive Phil around, that I have to drive within my limits, which are apparently stroke-impaired.
Phil is a master of that scanner, so we snag many more trains than if it was just me.
He’s also showed me some fabulous locations, and we tried a new one during this trip.


Train 21J westbound at CPW, where the storage-track (at right) from the South Fork Secondary rejoins the main. (There used to be a flyover here.) (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

But I can’t push. It’s the stroke, I guess. I hafta drive within my compromised limits. I get passed all-the-time.
I’m sure it also frustrates my brother-in-Boston, but it seems he never got the idea I was brain-injured, that I had a stroke.
This seems true of all my siblings.
To them I appear entirely normal, fully recovered. My disagreeing is just the maunderings of a Democrat (gasp!) — they know better as tub-thumping REPUBLICANS, making me of-the-Devil as an anti-Conservative (not merrily goosestepping to Rush Limbaugh).
Stroke-effects are usually physical; e.g. paralysis of a limb, etc.
People don’t seem to see that a brain-injury can also have mental effects.
I have no physical detriments, so therefore I’m completely recovered.
But I’m not.
All the gray-matter that was there before is not now.
(“Running on seven cylinders,” I say.)
Something that wasn’t previously doing the driving is now doing the driving.
Just like my speech is slightly compromised.
My original speech-center was vaporized by my stroke, but I get by using other grey-matter.
I can pass for normal, and my driving also appears normal.
But it’s not. I have to concentrate extremely hard to not make mistakes.
It makes me pokier than most.
Since I’d forgot to gas up the night before, we slowly ran out of gas as the day progressed.
Nothing dramatic, but after doing the shot above north (railroad east) of South Fork, I noticed we needed gas.
So into South Fork we went, but not without first trying to see the signals west out at South Fork Interlocking.
They weren’t visible — too far away, and washed out by the sun.
South Fork is an old coal-town built haphazardly on the hillocks.
Narrow side-streets — a grid — thread buildings with no frontage; right at the street. It’s like driving an alley.
The streets are only a single lane wide. This seems to be the way all towns are west of Altoona, hilly and cramped.
The main drag through South Fork is also quite narrow, and skirts two outside edges of the grid.
That means it does a sharp 90 degree turn east.
South Fork is also where the South Fork Secondary came off the old Pennsy main.
The main turns west, and the Secondary turns east.
Coal tipples are out along the Secondary, and they load coal trains for shipment east.
We pulled into a gas-station at the 90 degree turn, but Phil noticed another had a five-cent cheaper price per gallon.
So we drove to that.
A gas-station from the ancient past, with only two pumps, and they were barely accessible.
The space I had to use, between the pumps and the building, was quite narrow.
The pumps were also not “pay-at-the-pump” with me filling.
A crotchety old unshaven geezer in a motorized wheelchair, missing teeth except a gold incisor, in a sweat-stained greasy tee-shirt, asked “fill ‘er up?”
When was the last time you heard that? A gas-station from the ‘50s.
My gas purchase also would be cash, no credit-card.
$37; 10.4 gallons.
Glad I hit the ATM before making the trip.....
Phil wanted to use a restroom before we left.
“Right along the back wall,” geezer said.
“I suppose I should too,” I said, but first a senior-citizen had lined up to fill her Buick.
So I moved our car along side a giant flatbed tow-truck parking next to the building.
But only giant relative to the town. He was blocking the service-bays of the building. —But you couldn’t do otherwise.
After Phil came out of the restroom, I tentatively crossed the oil-slicked service-area, and went into the restroom.
It was incredibly filthy, but first I had to find the light-switch.
It wasn’t inside, and the restroom had no windows. Shut the door and it was pitch dark.
I surmised it might be outside, and there it was in a greasy junction-box beside the door.
“Cheapest gas if you can stand the accommodations,” I said to Phil.
“My wife wouldn’t even set foot in that restroom,” Phil said.
“If I’d had to sit, I woulda gone behind the building,” I said. “At least the toilet didn’t gush water all over the floor when flushed.”
I noticed a giant red-metal PRR keystone sign at least three feet high amidst the oil-stained girly calendars.
That PRR sign was slathered with grease.
“Ho-hum; another coal-train,” a father said the previous day at the Mighty Curve.
But not for coal and the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), South Fork wouldn’t exist.
In fact it’s almost dead already, but those coal-tipples keep it alive.
Our final stop was dinner for Phil and his wife, if she could do it.
Phil used my cellphone to call his wife; she’d done okay, and could do dinner.
We’d drive to Phil’s house, and then he would drive all of us to our dinner selection, the infamous spaghetti-joint, Lena’s Cafe in downtown Altoona.
Lena’s is not precisely an Italian restaurant, but it’s pretty close.
My meal-choice is always spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce and a single meatball — no salad, it’s too much.
My mother survived the Depression. I am required to clean my plate. —It determines how much I can order.
Phil’s wife Rita wasn’t too bad, but I worry about what Phil has to face.
I had a hard enough time dressing my wife when she was sick — I kept feeling like I was getting angry.
Phil’s wife has a difficult time walking.
She also talks about incredible fatigue, a thing I remember muscular dystrophy patients complaining about at my post-stroke outpatient rehabilitation.
Muscular dystrophy, like a stroke, is a traumatic brain-injury (TBI). Except a stroke is sudden, whereas muscular dystrophy is slow deterioration.
Both can effect both mental and physical functions, although in my case it’s mental function. Physical function recovered as what remained of my brain took over.
Rita’s deterioration seems more physical.
“Are ya sure ya wanna do this?” I asked.
Lena’s would require a cane; a walker was too wide.
Lena’s also has a step up into the building.
“Yep,” she said. She’s very determined; “ornery,” I used to say, referring to my own recovery.
Usual spaghetti with meatball and marinara at Lena’s.
After Lena’s we went back to Phil’s house and shot the breeze a while.
He had the same Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar I have.
He gave me their 2010 calendar, which I didn’t get.
Two of the pictures therein are at Cassandra Railfan Overlook (“kuh-SANN-druh;” as in the name “Anne”), one of our photo locations, which we didn’t visit.
Cassandra is probably the best, but mainly because it has shade.
The overlook is an old footbridge over the tracks the railroad is threatening to remove, because concrete crumbled off the bottom and damaged a locomotive.

—Day Three (Saturday, August 20, 2011)
“Back to reality,” I said to Mike Kraynyak (“CRANE-eee-yak”), as I turned in our room-keys.
Kraynyak is the proprietor of Tunnel Inn, the guy who bought the building and converted it to a bed-and-breakfast.
Tunnel Inn is the old Gallitzin town offices and library, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1905.
It’s brick and pretty substantial.
Kraynyak also added an outdoor deck out back, and roofed it.
He also put floodlights in the tunnel-cut.
Gallitzin built new town offices and sold the building.
Kraynyak bought it and converted it to a bed-and-breakfast.
It caters to railfans — it’s right next to Tracks Two and Three.
The drive is about five hours, 260+ miles, about all I can stand.
Other people drive 10 hours or more, over 500 miles.
I tried that once, and was utterly wiped out.
And that was despite shared driving.
I can do the entire drive to Altoona, but it’s all I can take.
A while ago I had to take a nap following the drive, but that seems to no longer be the case.
It’s probably working out at the YMCA.
And I used to puke out about 4 p.m. chasing trains with Faudi.
My wife still does, but not me.
There’s no incentive in chasing trains for her, but I’m a railfan.
Plus there’s the fact I work out at the YMCA.
As usual, the hardest thing about these mini-vacations is boarding our dog.
She’s very attached, and taking the dog along is almost impossible.
Horseshoe Curve doesn’t allow dogs, nor do Altoona motels.
Including Tunnel Inn, which doesn’t allow pets.

Queen of the Exercise-Gym

Michelle.

Michelle Andrews is the Queen of the Exercise-Gym at the YMCA in nearby Canandaigua.
The so-called “Wellness Center,” where I go at least twice a week, hopefully three times, to do workouts that last two to three hours.
Two extended cardiovascular workouts per visit, plus strength and balance training.
I consider balance training most successful. My balance is sloppy, probably because I had a stroke long ago.
Once while chasing trains in Altoona, PA (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”), I felt like I was gonna fall off an embankment.
So I started doing balance training at the Canandaigua YMCA, standing no hands on a partially deflated rubber half-ball about two feet in diameter.
The tendency is to fall off, but I got so I could do it.
And in so doing my forays up embankments were no longer frightening.
The cardiovascular training is to keep the old ticker working despite age 67. —Plus keep up with our high-energy dog.
Strength training is essentially the leg-press, to make it so I can continue to climb stairs and get up without difficulty.
By doing all this my blood-pressure was managed and made nominal without medication. —It never was that high anyway.
It proved an assertion by a long-ago Physical Therapist, that the key to managing blood-pressure without medication was to get into shape.
I agreed — I used to run footraces.
When I first started going there, which was before they did a major remodeling with new equipment, I noticed a rather husky-looking lady striding the Exercise-Gym.
We called her “Amazon-lady.” (That’s Michelle.)
She was a YMCA employee, and apparently has supervised the Exercise-Gym for years. —She’s a personal-trainer.
I no longer call her “Amazon-lady.”
When they got the new equipment, mainly a Cybex strength-training circuit, I asked her a question, and she suggested a complete orientation.
We set a date and a time.
Her orientation was about an hour explaining and setting-up the entire circuit, about 20 machines.
You are essentially pulling weights.
I had to give up that circuit to save time, but I no longer make fun of Michelle.
She has her feet squarely on the ground.
Personal-trainers have come-and-gone in that Exercise-Gym, but Michelle remains.
When people ask me questions, I refer them to Michelle.

• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• I am a railfan, and have been since age-two.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s six, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad.)

Chatting with Billie

“Warren Buffett,” I said to my neighbor Billie across the street; “you know who Warren Buffett is?”
“Right.”
Billie, like me, is retired, but in his 70s. (I’m only 67.) He lives in the home of his parents, both deceased.
Buffett said it’s about time the hyper-rich contributed to reducing the nation’s deficit, instead of always being coddled by Congress.
He was decrying the fact the hourlies often pay twice as much in tax-rate as the hyper-rich.
I saw this in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym on the silent wall-mounted “plasma-baby” tuned to CNN.
“Plasma-baby” is what my blowhard brother-in-Boston, who loudly badmouths everything I do or say, calls all large flat-screen TVs, and the YMCA Exercise-Gym has a few.
Other technologies for wide flat-screen TVs are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies,” an early flat-screen technology.
The TVs at the YMCA are closed-captioned — silent.
Anyone who reads this blog knows I’m anti-Conservative (Gasp!), not necessarily liberal (greater gasp!), but sick of all the noisy bombast and lies from the Right.
Particularly all the fevered blustering from Rush Limbaugh and his imitators, and the intolerant goosestepping of Annie Coulter.
This of course makes me of-the-Devil to my siblings, the subject of fervent prayer.
My siblings are all tub-thumping Conservatives.
“I think them rich people deserve all they got,” my neighbor said; “and the government shouldn’t be taking any more from them.”
“Right,” I said. “They got there by exporting all our jobs overseas, and laying off their hourlies — the ones that made their businesses viable.”
“You increase the taxes those businesses pay,” he said; “and they start laying off.”
“They’re no more gonna create jobs with a tax-break,” I said; “except maybe a job-or-two at a private jet manufacturer, or a job at the local Mercedes dealership.
They’ll line their pockets first.”
“Oh, he doesn’t buy into all that,” my wife said later. “He never worked for a large corporation.”
“Many buy into it,” I said; “.....led to Conservatism by a second-rate actor cued by his wife.”
And the hyper-rich fat-cats take advantage of it.
They play Conservatism like a violin, because it allows them to get excessively rich.
“Our nation isn’t broken; Washington is broken,” says Texas Governor Rick Perry, recently entered into the presidential sweepstakes.
Indeed Washington is; beholden to the fat-cats: “my way or the highway!”
Joe Sixpak triumphs, but in so doing kills himself.
“What I’m afraid of,” I said to Billie; “is the fat-cats ending Social Security, stealing all we put in so they can build mega-mansions in Palm Beach or Hollywood.
“In which case they’d have a revolution on their hands,” he stated. “Old folks depend on Social Security.”
“Yeah, but I’m told Social Security is an entitlement (dread!) — freeloading. Those collecting ain’t workin’.
I can just see it: aging geezers marching the streets and rioting.”
“Right! I got a 12-gauge and a 44 pistol.”

• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.

Two things

—1) “Locked,” I said to my wife, after tugging on the immobile Mens Room door at Baker Park in nearby Canandaigua.
“I guess I’ll hafta use the woods,” I said.
Yesterday morning (Sunday, August 14, 2011) we took our dog to Baker Park so I could patronize a nearby Tops supermarket.
It’s not Boughton Park (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”), but it’s the only park where we can let her loose.
Boughton Park is large and unfenced. She runs away.
Baker Park is a fenced city park, although not entirely fenced.
We can only let her loose along one segment, a part that’s entirely fenced, because she has found gaps in other segments.
One time she dug up some guy’s front yard in pursuit of a chipmunk.
Getting to Baker Park is at least 20-25 minutes, so I try to use the Mens Room before starting around.
“Is this your way of saying summer’s over?
Um guys, it’s only August 14th.
Summer goes clear until September 23, Labor Day unofficially.”
Around we went, then into the woods.
—2) “Now what?” I said.
“Please call attendant,” the U-scan said, in its usual disembodied voice.
Seconds passed; “The attendant is not here,” I said. “She’s on break.”
Seconds were becoming minutes, and I was stalled.
“I don’t know why I bother with these things,” I thought to myself.
“Because you can’t resist technology,” my wife would say later.
Finally the attendant reappeared.
She zapped the machine.
On we went again. “BIP! —Please deposit item in bag,” except I was beating the machine.
Until I hit the “pay now” button.
“Please call attendant!”
“Now what?” I glanced exasperatedly at the attendant. “All I was trying to do was pay. These things are so touchy.”
Again she zapped the machine. It’s called override security-jones.
“Please select method of payment.”
“BIP!” Credit-card.
“Please slide your card through the card-reader and follow the instructions.”
Instructions! What instructions?
“Is this amount correct?”
Yes. Process transaction.
“Please take your grocery bags and your receipt to the attendant for signing, and thank you for shopping at Tops!”
A triumph yet again over technology, with the usual hairballs of course.

• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• “Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo we occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua, which has U-scan machines for self checkout.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s six, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't too bad.)
• “Boughton Park” is where I run and we walk our dog. It will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns.
• Baker Park has a park building with lavatories.

What’s it gonna be today?

“Did you see that?” cried my friend Art Dana (“DAY-nuh”), deceased about a year ago, after a driver swept across my bow in front of the so-called “Jewel-in-the-Crown.”
“Ever get the feeling all we were doing was cutting slack for complete idiots?” he’d say.
“And bumbling grannies and NASCAR wannabees,” I’d respond.
“Oh Dora, look. A bus, a bus; PULL OUT! PULL OUT! Them things can stop on a dime.“
(Nine tons of hurtling steel.)
Art, like me, was a retired bus-driver for Regional Transit Service (“RTS”), the supplier of transit-bus service in the Rochester area.
The “Jewel-in-the-Crown” is the gigantic Pittsford-Plaza Wegmans supermarket, a store so big ya need a powered cart.
They even have valet service for their giant parking-lot.
“Do you see how much slop I have in front of me?” I’d ask.
“That’s the old bus-driver in me. Allow enough room to stop without tossing my passengers outta the seats — and the four-wheelers can cut me off without drama on my part.”
Every time I venture out onto the highway, I get madness.
Yesterday (Friday, August 12, 2011) it was a lady with a handicap-tag honking her horn at me, incensed I didn’t run a yellow turn-arrow, which would have allowed her to run the following red turn-arrow.
She gave me the one-finger salute as she roared by.
The other day we had to make an early medical appointment in Rochester.
This meant NASCAR rush-hour.
My follower blasted past as I merged onto Interstate-390, then nearly sideswiped another car trying to pass him on the right.
A gigantic swerve ensued, but they managed to avoid each other.
“NASCAR rush-hour,” I said. “Gotta be first to the free donuts.”
Having been a bus-driver made me what I am: hyper careful.
“You coulda pulled in front of that guy,” my brother would exclaim.
“Old bus-driving rule,” I’d say. “Don’t scare the four-wheelers. They might do something utterly stupid, and thereby involve you in an accident. I can wait 10 seconds.”
The other day I was returning another Transit retiree from a brunch gig.
“Didja see how I looked both ways before I started into the intersection?”
“‘Poppy, the light is green!’” he said, reprising a grandson.
“‘Didja see that clown running the light? He woulda T-boned ya.’”
I have a friend in central Pennsylvania who told me he starts into an intersection if an approaching car has its turn-signal on.
“Not this kid!” I said. “I almost got creamed doing that once.”
Exiting the Jewish Community Center in Rochester with a Transit bus, I started into the street because an approaching car had his turn-signal on.
He had it on by mistake.
You can bet that from then on I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to wait until the signaled car started to actually make his turn, much to the animated chagrin of my honking followers.
So what’s it gonna be this time?
Seems every time I enter the road, utter madness occurs at least once.
I nearly got run off the road once, by a girl reading her morning newspaper while yammering on her cellphone and applying eye-shadow. She was weaving a black Volkswagen Jetta all over the road.
Another time I managed to avoid T-boning another cellphone user who never saw me — a gigantic screeching swerve.
She was too busy telling her mother her husband was a bum.
I got a fleeting unacknowledging glance; “Well, guess I can go, mother.....”
Cellphone use while driving is illegal in this state.
The violators go ballistic when pulled over.
Another time, at the same intersection, a lady pulled out in front me with a horse-trailer behind her pickup.
She was clearly lost; which warrants and justifies strange behavior, like turning onto a road without looking.
“I expected that,” I said. “Were it not for the fact I drove bus, I woulda T-boned ya.”
The speed-limit in front of my house is 40 mph.
It’s a residential area.
I’ve seen people zoom by at 70+ in their cars.
Our road is arrow-straight.
I’ve seen crotch-rockets pass at over 100 plus.
The Harleys might get 80.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
• “Pittsford” is an old suburb east of Rochester.
• “Wegmans” is a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at.
• “Pittsford-Plaza” is a large shopping-plaza west of Pittsford.

Sun-Drop

The bottle I saw at camp.

“When do I ever get to taste-test this stuff, to see if it tastes like the Sun-Drop of old?” I said to my wife last night (Wednesday, August 10, 2011).
The Summers of 1959, 1960, and 1961 yrs trly worked at a religious boys camp in northeastern Maryland.
It was a really neat job that paid little. The camp was on Chesapeake Bay, so there was canoeing, and we also did horseback riding.
I worked in the stables teaching horsemanship.
One of the perks of the job was Sun-Drop cola, a fruity concoction formulated by a soda-pop salesman in N. Carolina in 1930.
Sun-Drop has a lotta caffeine; even more than Mountain Dew.
Sun-Drop seemed rather rare and exotic. I’d never seen it before.
It tastes somewhat like Mountain Dew does now, although not as strong.
Our camp sold it in the trading-post, and stored it outside in cases.
The bottles got transferred as needed into a cooler in the store.
The fact it was stored outside made it easy pickings.
The only problem was it was warm.
Come nightfall I would purloin a bottle for consumption before bedtime.
This got to be fairly often.
Sun-Drop was good stuff.
When camp ended I’d purchase two cases to take home.
That’s 48 bottles.
Camp was 10 weeks.
That’s 42 weeks between camp — about a bottle per weekend.
I’d ration it at home.
When I moved on to college, I discovered our college, Houghton (pronounced “HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”), was selling Sun-Drop.
Out of a soda-machine, named “Sam,” in 10/12-ounce bottles; camp was eight ounces.
If I had any idea Houghton was selling Sun-Drop, it would have factored into my college choice.
Sun-Drop was stored in cases in a downstairs studio in the college radio-station. Their soda-machine was parked outside.
The cases were behind a curtain.
I’d venture downstairs and purloin a bottle.
Again, warm, but good stuff.
But the purloining of Sun-Drop probably ended after my freshman year, when I was no longer passing the radio-station to get to my dorm.
That soda-machine was eventually retired during my senior year. Soda would no longer be available in bottles. It was now in 12-ounce cans.
And the distributor refused to change.
I wrote a column that appeared in the college newspaper about that. To me that was major history.
When that soda-machine was retired, there was no more Sun-Drop.
About a month ago I noticed a nearby independent supermarket was selling Sun-Drop, but in giant quart bottles.
No way could I consume that much.
So yesterday, patronizing that supermarket, I looked for smaller bottles, like 20 ounces or so, or cans.
They had it. I purchased one 20-ounce bottle.
We’ll see if it tastes like the Sun-Drop of old.
Some day; when I can ever stand drinking soda.

• “Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.

QR codes

“It seems like everything, magazines, the Penny-Saver, newspapers have these here QR codes,” my wife said.
“‘Scan this code with your Smartphone, and see sweetness and light’
Does your Smartphone have that?”
“NO,” I said. “For that I need an ap, and I feel I have no need of it.
Take a picture of the code, have the ap scan it, and get directed to sweetness and light.”
“Yeah, like a web-site or a video I can also see on my computer,” my wife said.
“And a computer is much more visible than that tiny Smartphone display,” I added.
“And I sure wouldn’t wanna order anything on a cellphone network,” my wife said. “How secure would that be?”
“All it is is the latest slam-dunk gizmo,” I said; “and I don’t feel I want it.
Just because something is the latest technology doesn’t mean it’s viable,” I said.
“Anyone realize a Smartphone display is too tiny for humans? I hafta expand and scroll.”

• I suppose “QR” stands for quick-response.
• My Smartphone is a DroidX.

Mighty Wal*Mart

Anyone who reads this here blog knows yrs trly abhors Mighty Wal*Mart.
Much to the vocal dismay of my siblings who all loudly assert Wal*Mart is the greatest store in the entire universe.
And that I am of-the-Devil for not liking it.
I have numerous unpleasant shopping experiences at Wal*Mart:
—1) On entering the store once I was hugged and kissed by a urine-smelling geezer-greeter.
—2) I was snapped at by two store-associates for having the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to dare ask where something was, thereby interrupting their day-long donut-break.
But I needed socks, and an electric toothbrush.
“Wal*Mart has everything!” I’m loudly told.
“Sure, find it,” I say.
I treaded tentatively into the store, past someone under a tent selling homemade pastries, and a Vietnam vet peddling poppies.
Thankfully, I was not bussed by a geezer-greeter, nor was I accosted by anyone.
Now, find socks in this vast store.
I noticed “Mens Fashions” and ambled toward that.
I managed to stumble upon a display of boys socks.
“May I help you, sir?” bubbled a grinning store-associate.
Seems I’ve been knighted with age.
“These are boys socks; you want mens.”
“But I have small feet, size 6&1/2,” I said; “I been through this before.”
We hobbled toward mens socks.
“I stubbed my toe,” the store-associate said.
“Well I have achy knees,” I said.
“People bellow at me for not walking fast enough. They insist I walk at the speed of light. Tolerance is for wusses!”
We decided on mens small socks; “Made in Honduras,” it said.
“Probably by child slave-labor in steaming sweat-shops,” I thought.
“I’ll try them, but only if I can return,” I said.
“Sure,” she bubbled.
“Now,” I said; “I’m also looking for electric toothbrushes.”
“Past ‘Pharmacy’ to ‘Health and Beauty Aids,’ about an aisle in.”
“Gack!” I said. “I have no idea where that is. I’ve been in this store maybe once before.”
We hobbled to an open area.
“See ‘Pharmacy?’” she said, pointing.
Perusing the electric toothbrushes I found a Philips Sonocare®, $99.96.
Philips Sonocare was highly recommended by my dental hygienist.
I had a $10 coupon, so I bought it.
Checking the Philips online site when I got home I found the same toothbrush for $99.99.
Yes, indeed Wal*Mart had the lowest price, if you consider three cents a substantial saving.
I don’t consider three cents an adequate offset to -a) getting hugged by a urine-smelling geezer-greeter, and/or -b) getting snapped at by store-associates.
“But Philips would probably require shipping and handling,” my wife said.
“Yes, they probably would,” I said; “but I probably burned a dollar’s worth of gas getting to-and-from that Wal*Mart, contributing to pollution.”
Wal*Mart is about a mile beyond the grocery where I often shop.
Before leaving I decided to peruse Wal*Mart’s grocery section.
Bananas are 47¢ per pound, 49¢ at the grocery I usually shop at.
A saving of perhaps six cents in my case — for which I get to burn a dollar’s worth of gas.
Plus bananas at Wal*Mart are small and intensely green. Those not green look like they were used to bat plums around.
“Hey Erin, lob me that there peach, and I’ll smash it into the ozone.”
I also decided to peruse the candy aisle, in search of exotic dark-chocolates.
The kind of stuff I buy fairly often.
Down the aisle I went; acres of bagged Hershey’s sweets, but no exotic dark-chocolates.
Next aisle over was Froot Loops available in 250-pound sacks.
Proving yet again, Wal*Mart caters to the sugar-hit crowd, and those buying in bulk.
What am I gonna do with 250 pounds of Cheerios?
I don’t even buy processed cereals; too much salt, and I can taste it.
What I buy is funky foods: e.g. Arrowhead Mills unsalted puffed cereal from Amazon, and bulk oats from Tops.
Corn-Flakes is dreadful; like eating ocean seaweed.
By the time I get to the last of 250 pounds, it rots!
I walked out — PASS!
At age-67, my knees ache, and I feel like I’m falling apart.
But seeing all those flaccid Wal*Mart patrons, I don’t feel so bad.
Grotesque obese ladies in bloated short-shorts, and sagging oxygenated geezers in motorized carts. And I bet I’m older than they are. —They looked bedraggled, except those dunking their heads in Grecian Formula.
I checked out behind a flaccid grandma trying to finagle some angle on her Wal*Mart credit-card.
Her tattooed unmarried daughter, full of facial steel, was pushing the cart. Her overweight baby was zonked out in the child-seat.
“I almost forgot the Mountain-Dew,” she chirped loudly to grandma.
She had also purchased a sippy-cup.
BIP!


• “Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo we occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in nearby Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east of where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)

The end of the RAZR®

My wife is finally gonna give up on her ancient Motorola RAZR® cellphone (at left).
It’s almost four years old — maybe five.
Anyone hip to recent cellphone technology knows the RAZR® is an antique.
We thought the world of it when we got them. They were such a step up from what we had.
As you can tell, yrs trly had one too, at first.
But it got dunked, so had to be tossed.
That was the time I learned the value of backing up my contact-list.
I had to completely reconstruct my contact-list on my replacement phone.
At that time Verizon, our cellphone service, wanted money to back up.
Now they don’t.
Even when they wanted money, which wasn’t much, I backed up.
My replacement phone wasn’t a RAZR®, but it was close enough.
Verizon no longer sold the RAZR®, and cellphone technology had caught up.
By the RAZR® I had been through three previous cellphones.
The RAZR® was number-four, a quantum-leap from number-three.
My replacement got dunked too.
I replaced with a phone identical to the dunked replacement.
And of course it was slam-dunk easy, since my contact-list had been backed up.
Then replacement two began to go wonky.
It wouldn’t recharge.
Finally it ran out of volts and died.
Meanwhile my hairdresser had shown me his Droid® Smartphone.
It looked interesting, so I upgraded to a DroidX to replace my dead cellphone.
In other words, my DroidX probably would have replaced my RAZR had my RAZR not been dunked..
Meanwhile, my wife continued to use her RAZR.
She had no interest in a Smartphone.
She also had no interest in a non-Smartphone upgrade, since it would probably mean learning operation of the upgrade, which might be different from the RAZR.
But the battery in her RAZR is original, and it’s getting flaky.
It won’t hold much charge.
Verizon no longer sells the RAZR.
We could replace the battery, but why bother? Cellphones don’t last forever.
And the RAZR is an antique.
We visited a local Verizon store yesterday (Friday, August 5, 2011), and perused various basic phones they had for $99 or more.
“But we just got this flyer that has a basic phone in it for $10.”
“Well, that’s online; ya gotta go online to get a $10 phone.
After you get it, ya bring it here, we activate it, and set it up.”
So back home.
My wife visited the Verizon site last night, where she can get 89 bazilyun basic phones for free.
“NOW WHAT!”
A phone-purchase has to be done from my account, since we have a family plan.
Plus I got an e-mail from Verizon suggesting we upgrade her phone. It supplied a surfeit of samples.
Replacing her RAZR is turning into a hairball.
Thankfully, as I see it, cellphone operation is pretty much standard across the board. I think it has to be — legally.
My replacements were all identical to my RAZR; my RAZR was different than previous cellphones.

Motorized mayhem

CanAm at the Glen (1970). (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Last night (Thursday, August 4, 2011) I witnessed a TV-ad from Watkins Glen International, an automotive road-racing course at the south end of Seneca Lake, a long Finger Lake in central New York.
“We been at this 26 years,” it said; a number I can’t make sense of since cars have been racing at Watkins Glen since 1948, and the first race I attended at the Glen was in 1964, which is 47 years ago.
I suppose 26 years is NASCAR at the Glen, one race in 1957, and then from 1986 on.
NASCAR is what I always hoped to see at the Glen, but didn’t, since back then the Glen was a sportscar course.
If there had been NASCAR there back then, it would have been Richard Petty, David Pearson, Bobby Allison, and perhaps Junior Johnson......
.....In cars that woulda been much-modified stock cars, not the dedicated racecars NASCAR has now.
The ad depicted crash after crash, machine-gun style. Cars careening into each other and disintegrating, or clobbering safety-barriers.
Of particular note was a NASCAR racer hitting a barrier of sand-filled plastic drums.
Sand flew all over everywhere; high into the sky.
I attended sportscar racing, including the Glen, almost 10 years.
Over that time I never saw one accident.
And I can only remember one near-accident.
A Canadian driver named Roger McCaig lost the brakes on his CanAm racer at the end of a long high-speed straight at Mosport (“MOE-sport”) road-racing course east of Toronto, and rode out-of-control into the boonies, a large run-off area at the end of the straight in an open field.
His car became airborne, but didn’t flip. It landed on its wheels.

Cevert.

At Watkins Glen in 1971 French Formula-One racer Francois Cevert (“say-VAIR”) was killed when his car lost control, rode up on the trackside Armco guard-rail barrier, utterly disintegrated, and he was decapitated.
We were stunned.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Accidents would happen, but the driver was supposed to walk away.
We stood at attention as La Marseillaise was played on the track P.A.
It was awful and utterly depressing.
It was when I began to lose interest in auto-racing.
The Glen had instituted various expensive so-called “safety-improvements,” yet drivers kept getting killed.
That Armco barrier that killed Cevert was a Glen safety-improvement.
Jo Siffert, Peter Revson, then even Mark Donohue, a really nice guy.
Ronnie Peterson, a Swedish Formula-One racer, crashed his Lotus, it caught fire, and he burned to death.
And here the Glen glorifies mayhem and carnage.
I hope that’s not what spectators want. I know it wasn’t what I wanted.

• The Sportscar Club of America’s (SCCA) CanAm championship series was a title chase of races throughout Canada and America from the late ‘60s through 1974. The cars were virtually unlimited, as long as they had fenders and two seats. Engine-size (and output) was unlimited.
• “Seneca Lake” is one of the Finger Lakes, a series of north-south lakes in Central New York that look like the imprint of a large hand. They were formed by the receding glacier.

Science-project

Yesterday (Wednesday, August 3, 2011) I went to Mighty Lowes in nearby Canandaigua, the nationwide big-box hardware and lumber store.
About three months ago I purchased a hyper-expensive light-emitting-diode floodlight to replace a failed halogen flood.
It’s not installed yet. To do so would require our heavy wooden extension-ladder.
Since then, a second halogen flood failed, so I desired to purchase another light-emitting-diode floodlight to replace it.
Our backyard has three floods I turn on when I let our dog out at night.
Since two had already failed, I figured I’d replace all three, partly because they use only 16 watts per bulb instead of 75 watts per bulb.
After considerable search I found the massive display of light-emitting-diode floods.
It was at floor level, and had 89 bazilyun different bulb-types.
I perused the confusing array, and decided I needed help — a lighting-guy.
I had brought along the box my previous light-emitting-diode flood was in.
“I’m trying to match this light,” I said.
The guy helping me was not a lighting-guy.
He was bathroom fixtures.
He dialed up heavy ammunition on his cellphone: the head lighting person.
She appeared; “What are you trying to do, Melvin?”
“This gentleman needs a bulb,” he said.
“Which matches what came in this box,” I added; “which was purchased here.”
“We no longer sell that,” she said. “Technology is moving so fast, we now sell this.”
“Yeah, I looked at all that,” I said; “but it’s rather confusing.
Some are spotlights, and some are floodlights; and some render ‘warm light,’ and some don’t. Some are ‘indoor only.’
I need an outdoor flood that renders un-warm light.”
“That would be this,” the girl said, dragging out a flood.
“But that says ‘warm light’ on the box.
I’ve made that mistake before, with fluorescents.”
We got down on our hands-and-knees to more closely peruse the gigantic floor-level display.
At age-67 it ain’t easy.
I began to get the feeling my helper was no more a lighting-guy than me.
“How about this?” she said.
“But that says ‘spotlight,’ not ‘flood.’
We’re turning this into a high-school science project,” I added.
Minutes had passed already, and we were groveling on the floor.
Here we were reading labels, confusing because they were all different.
I finally picked out an ‘un-warm’ flood; how much time do I wanna waste?
It seemed smaller than what I had.
“Ya sure ya want that one?” the girl said. “It’s smaller and may render less light.”
“Well, all I’m doing is letting my dog out. It ain’t a helipad.
My dog could probably see without the light; use her nose.
All the light is for is so I can see to let her back in.”

• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. (It has a Lowes.) —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.

Yellow father

Yesterday (Tuesday, August 2, 2011) the Mighty Mezz ran a photograph (illustrated above) which brought back memories of my life during the early ‘70s; a life ruled by Kodak — “Yellow father.”
It’s color-ink cartridges; not the Kodak stuff I knew, but the same strident yellow boxes.
Kodak yellow was everywhere.
I had a darkroom at that time, a converted bathroom in our apartment.
I had covered the window with black cardboard and electrical-tape, and sealed off the door by various means.
I had to scrunch a throw-rug against the door-bottom.
It had to be pitch-dark in there when I turned out the light.—No light leaking in anywhere.
I was buying 35mm film in bulk, and rolling my own, usually Tri-X.
I was also souping it with Acufine®, a hot developer that ratcheted Tri-X up to 1200 ASA, 2400 if I could stand the grain. (Tri-X was normally ASA 400.)
Sometimes you had to stand graininess to pull an image out of the fog, or available-light.
I wasn’t using flash; I never got the hang of it. Always available-light. I could hand-hold steady down to 1/15th.
I’d bicycle to good old LeBeau Photo on Lyell (“lile”) Ave., and pedal home with a giant yellow box of 500 sheets of Kodak 8x10 PolyContrast print paper — and yellow boxes of dry chemicals for mixing.
Like Dektol print-developer, and hypo, and hypo-clear. There also was a liquid fixer concentrate.
Souping Tri-X was just a short kiss with Acufine; beyond that it bleached out. Plus-X never worked, and Panatomic was only acceptable.
Tri-X with a kiss got printable shadow detail.
Thankfully my darkroom is retired, with all its foul-smelling chemicals.
Replaced by Photoshop® on this MAC. (Ah, dryness.)
A guy I knew at the Mighty Mezz still had a darkroom, and would develop prints he hung in his cubical.
I wonder if he can still do that? Tri-X and PolyContrast are last century.
I now have a digital camera (I remember when the Mighty Mezz switched to digital; weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth).
Yellow father is gone. So is LeBeau Photo with its many yellow boxes.
The other day I drove past Kodak Park. Hardly anything was left.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over five years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• “Lyell Ave.” is a main east-west street on the west side of Rochester.
• RE: “bleached out......” —The black parts of the film (the shadows) would overdevelop.
• “Kodak Park” was a gigantic facility in Rochester where Kodak made its film, and did its color processing. It was self-contained — had its own fire-department and railroad. —A lot of it was demolished.