Monthly Calendar-Report for May 2013

Train 651 westbound (an extra of empty coal-hoppers) exits Altoona Yard. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

—The May 2013 entry of my own calendar is from last June, the last time I saw the old Pennsy signaling in Altoona.
Norfolk Southern’s tracks through Altoona have been reconfigured, Alto Tower closed, the old Pennsy signals removed, and new signaling installed.
Visible in the picture is the old Pennsy signaling just before 17th Street overpass in Altoona. (I’m on that overpass.)
That cross-track girder signal-bridge has been removed.
The vaunted Pennsy target-signals probably now clutter some junkyard or landfill.
The tracks through Altoona have been reconfigured.
In this picture where Track Three starts is visible. It switches off Track Two.
Now there’s no switch. Track Two moves over and becomes Track Three.
Venerable Alto Tower (just like the musical pronunciation), on the other side of the overpass, is closed.
It supposedly will be saved and moved to Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona.
As long as I’ve visited Altoona, up until recently Alto controlled train-movements through Altoona.
Now train-movement through Altoona is controlled by Pittsburgh, and apparently not too well.
Trains get delayed, which didn’t happen with Alto Tower.
This picture was taken with the camera I borrowed after my own camera failed.
This picture is from train-chase number-nine with Phil Faudi (“Fow-dee;” as in “wow”), the train-chase where everything went wrong.
Not only did my camera fail, but it started raining.
It was also not long after my wife died, so I got very depressed.
The sun is still shining in this picture, but soon it clouded over, and frequent deluges began.
This borrowed camera also went wonky on me, although that may have been -a) my unfamiliarity with it, and/or -b) lack of light — it was so dark it wanted flash; it was raining.
The picture is fairly dramatic, but the reason I used it is because it shows the old Pennsy signaling.
Locomotive #1024 is an EMD SD70ACe built in March 2011. They generate 4,300 horsepower, and as far as I know are alternating-current traction-motors.
The SD70ACe meets the more stringent “Tier-Two” locomotive emission regulations, and competes with General-Electric’s ES44C4 (Evolution Series, 4400 HP, AC traction, 4 traction motors).



This is more like it.

—The May 2013 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a hot-rodded 1932 Ford five-window coupe.
After that horribly-slammed and therefore impractical ’32 Ford pickup last month, it’s a relief to see something a real human-being could operate.
Although by now it’s probably a trailer-queen. In fact, the front-end looks so low it would bottom mounting a driveway.
But it looks like an adult could sit in it. Although he’d probably hit his head on the car’s ceiling; the top has been chopped 3&1/2 inches.
But it looks great. The car has a built 350 Chevy, and a four-on-the-floor tranny. The calendar comments you rarely see the four-speed any more.
Hot-rodders use automatic-transmission. Auto trannies have caught up. They’re about as fast as a standard tranny. They used to be called “slush-boxes.” Auto trannies when first built were wasting power.
But it became obvious the auto tranny took out driver slowness and/or error in shifting gears. Current automatics deliver power as well as standard transmission, yet shift quicker. Standard transmission has to be de-clutched, or should be. Auto-tranny just slams into the next gear.
Occasionally you see a standard transmission in hotrods. But if so it’s a modern five- or six-speed, not the four-speed Corvette tranny of yore.
This kid had always liked standard tranny. Rowing a V8 up through the gears has always appealed. I liked the sound.
With auto tranny you just floor it! It revs for the moon, then everything catches up.
During my senior year at college I was friends with a guy who had a ’32 Ford five-window coupe, but his car was a Model-B, four cylinders.
Five of us took his car on a fairly long trip to a park for a class picnic.
Five crammed into a car designed for two was ridiculous. At least two of us were crammed in the trunk.
We made it perhaps seven miles, then the car died.
“Vapor-lock,” the owner declared, and wet rags were wrapped around the metal fuel-tubing.
We did make it to the picnic, but I probably returned in something else.
Five people in a coupe is uncomfortable, plus I wanted reliable transportation.

Three-window coupe (a deuce; that’s an overhead-cam motor, overkill).

Who knows whatever happened to that guy’s ’32 Model-B? It was real (stock), what now would be a rarity.
We had dreams of hot-rodding it. Being only four-cylinder, it was an antique, and desperately needed a modern V8 engine, like a SmallBlock Chevy.
It may even be this car, but I doubt it.
But at least this thing is more practical than last month’s pickup.
Never-the-less, five-windows are nice, but I prefer the three-window.



New E-44. (Photo by H. Gerald MacDonald©.)

—The May 2013 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is a Pennsy E-44 electric freight locomotive.
The E-44s were intended to replace Pennsy’s aging P-5 fleet of electric freight locomotives.
The P-5s were originally designed as passenger locomotives, but were throughly skonked by the fabulous GG-1 (“Jee-Jee-ONE;” I only say that because a friend was mispronouncing it “Jee-Jee-Eye”)
Rather than give up on the P-5s, Pennsy decided to assign them all to freight-service.

Box-cab P-5s. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

A steeple-cab P-5. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

There were two versions: a box-cab version, and later a steeple-cab. (The GG-1 is a steeple-cab.)
The steeple-cab was a response to the fact the entire crew was killed in a grade-crossing accident with a box-cab.
The P-5s were Alternating-Current (AC), what came over the wire.
The E-44s were Direct-Current (DC). Rectification was on-board to convert the alternating-current from the overhead wire to direct-current for the traction-motors.
The traction-motors were essentially the same units used in diesel locomotives (which are [were] DC).
Pennsy had tried rectification in earlier experimental locomotives, but nothing worked out.
General-Electric’s EL-C, used on Virginian’s mountain electrification, was a very successful application of rectification.
When Virginian’s electrification shut down in 1962 (VGN had earlier merged with Norfolk & Western), the EL-Cs went to New Haven Railroad, electrified out of New York City east. (NYNH&H reclassified them EF-4.)

Two Penn-Central E-33s in Wilmington, DE. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

These units found their way to Pennsy lines after New Haven was folded into the Penn-Central merger. PC reclassified them as E-33s.
The E-44 is the E-33 upgraded, and somewhat redesigned.
“44” stands for 4,400 horsepower, although some E-44s were later upgraded to 5,000 horsepower.
To do so was limited by how much horsepower the traction-motors could deliver — although six traction-motors were in play with the E-44.
Also at issue is whether the E-44 was attractive. Well, I think they are. They ain’t the GG-1, but I think they look better than a P-5.
Rectification was later simplified for all E-44s.
The first E-44s used mercury-arc ignitron rectification
Later silicon-diode rectification was tried; big transistors.
Silicon-diode was simpler and more maintainable.
All E-44s were converted to silicon-diode rectification, but this particular E-44 is probably still ignitron.
The locomotive is only three months old, and the photograph is 1961.

The only remaining E-44. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

All but one E-44 was scrapped when the old Pennsy electrified freight-lines were de-energized by successor Conrail in 1981.
The single remaining E-44 is at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.





1969 Cobra-Jet Mustang. (Photo by Peter Harholdt©.)

—The May 2013 entry in my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1969 Ford Mustang GT 428 SCJ.
The picture looks more an illustration than a portrait. It’s dramatic, and avoids photographer Harholdt’s side-elevations for portrait-pictures.
The same angle is dramatic, but needs to include the rear of the car.
The Cobra-Jet Mustang is a joke. About all it would be good for is drag-racing.
Toss it into a corner and it would plow. Too much heavy engine is over the front tires.
One also wonders how you get the lightly-loaded rear drive-tires to hook up in a drag. Full power from a standing-start could spin your rear tires. Your drag-race would go up in tire-smoke.
Owners of Cobra-Jet Mustangs had to be judicious to win a drag-race.
You had to apply enough power to get a quick start, but not too much power. Once you got rolling you could open ‘er up.
This is a nice-looking car, but I prefer a Mach-I or Boss-302, the most desirable of all Mustangs.
A Cobra-Jet might win a drag-race, but a Mach-I you could enjoy on real highways.


Mail-train with Pennsy E-7As. (Photo by Robert Olmsted.)

—The May 2013 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is a brace of two Pennsy E-7As leading a mail-train out of Chicago.
The picture is May 11, 1958.
I see the locomotives are still the cat-whisker scheme, five pin-stripes down the sides.
As opposed to the wider single-stripe scheme applied later to save money.
The cat-whisker scheme is Raymond Loewy, first applied to Pennsy’s phenomenal GG-1 electric locomotive (4-6-0+0-6-4)
The cat-whisker scheme was so attractive it was applied to later Pennsy passenger locomotives.
But it’s costly to apply. Five separate gold-leaf pinstripes, as opposed to a single wide yellow stripe.
Railfans prefer the cat-whisker scheme, but I don’t think the single-stripe scheme looks bad. It follows the same lines Loewy put down.
What looks bad is no stripe at all on a black carbody, Penn-Central.
The locomotives are tuscan-red (“TUSS-kin;” not “Tucson, Ariz.”), the color for Pennsy passenger equipment. Pennsy passenger-cars were painted tuscan-red, as were many Pennsy passenger locomotives.
I’m told many houses in Altoona, PA, Pennsy’s shop-town, were also painted tuscan-red.
EMD’s (Electro-motive Division) E-units were not as pretty as other passenger locomotives, like the Alco PAs, or Baldwin’s shark-nosed passenger units.
For a long time EMD was a subsidiary of General Motors. Now it’s independent.
Prettiness didn’t matter to Pennsy. EMD locomotives were more reliable.
E-units put out as much as 2,400 horsepower (the E-9s), but did so with two engines, like two 1,200 horsepower V12s.
I’ll let Wikipedia weigh in here:
“EMD E-units were a line of passenger train diesel locomotives built by the General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD) and its predecessor the Electro-Motive Corporation (EMC). Final assembly for all E-units was in La Grange, Illinois.
Production ran from May, 1937, to December, 1963. The name ‘E-unit’ refers to the model numbers given to each successive type, which all began with E. The E originally stood for eighteen hundred horsepower, the power output of the earliest model, but the letter was kept for later models of higher power ratings.
Like many early passenger locomotives, E-units used two engines to achieve the rated power. This was due to the technology of the time limiting the power that could be developed by a single engine.
Even so, while E-units were used singly for shorter trains, longer trains needed multiple locomotive units; many railroads used triple units. E-units could be purchased either with or without driving cabs; units with a cab are called A units or lead units, while cabless units are called B units or booster units.
(B units did contain simple controls for hostling purposes, but they could not be so controlled on the main line.)
The locomotive units were linked together with MU (“multiple-unit”) cables which enabled the crew in the lead unit at the front to control the trailing units.
Railroads tended to buy either ABA sets (two driving cab-equipped units facing in opposite directions with a booster in between) or ABB sets (a single driving cab with a pair of boosters). The former did not need to be turned to pull in either direction, but B units were cheaper than A units and they made for a smoother line to the train.”
The locomotives are E7s. I don’t know if Pennsy had E8s or E9s. The E8s and E9s had grillwork over that top side-panel. E7s don’t.
I was behind E-units on a railfan excursion, but I don’t think they were ex-Pennsy, even though they were done up in Pennsy colors.


The Levin Es. (Note grill-work on top panel, and single-stripe paint scheme.) (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The units are the restored Levin-brothers E-units. They used to head the Conrail business-train. They had been extensively refurbished by Conrail.
They were very strong, and ran great.
And they’re actual E-units. They have two V12 engines. Union Pacific’s restored E-units have only one V16 engine. They’re more a GP-38 in an E-unit body.



At least it looks nice! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The May 2013 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a Stearman biplane (“BYE-plain;” I only say that because as a child I was mispronouncing it “bip-lane”) trainer manufactured by Boeing.
I’ve never liked biplanes, but the Stearman was very compliant. It was often the first training airplane of would-be fighter-pilots for WWII.
My first contact with Stearmans was as a child: Stearmans towing long advertising-banners above our neighborhood.
“Drink Ballentine beer; just look for the three-ring sign.” (Ballentine, based in Newark, NJ, was once quite large, and was heavily marketed in the Philadelphia area. It now belongs to Falstaff Brewing. —I’m from south Jersey, across from Philadelphia.)
The Stearmans flew out of what I’m told was the first Philadelphia Airport. That airport was in south Jersey, and didn’t last, mainly because its runways couldn’t be lengthened.
You might be able to land a DC-3 on them, but later planes required longer runways.
That airport was closed in by development, plus a river.
But for private aviation, and Stearmans, it was fine.
I remember bicycling there once as a teenager, and all that was left were a couple Piper-Cubs, and Aeroncas. Also a couple Ercoupes and a Swift.
By the time I visited the Stearmans were gone.
Stearmans towing banners is early ‘50s; my visit was middle ‘50s.
The Stearman banner-planes were probably picked up war surplus.
I think I might have seen a crashed Stearman. All I remember is a radial-engine wrapped in tubing and flapping red canvas. Anything useable had been stripped off the wreck.
The airport has since closed.
I’ll let my WWII warbirds site weigh in:
“Built as a private venture by the Stearman Aircraft Company of Wichita (bought by Boeing in 1934), this two-seat biplane was of mixed construction.
The wings were of wood with fabric covering while the fuselage had a tough, welded steel framework, also fabric covered.
Either a Lycoming R-680 (PT-13) or Continental R-670 (PT-17) engine powered most models, at a top speed of 124 mph with a 505-mile range. An engine shortage in 1940-41 led to installation of 225-horsepower Jacobs R-755 engines on some 150 airframes, and the new designation PT-18.
The plane was easy to fly, and relatively forgiving of new pilots. It gained a reputation as a rugged airplane and a good teacher.
Officially named the Boeing Model 75, the plane was (and still is) persistently known as the ‘Stearman’ by many who flew them.
It was called the ‘PT’ by the Army, ‘N2S’ by the Navy and ‘Kaydet’ by Canadian forces.
By whatever name, more than 10,000 were built by the end of 1945 and at least 1,000 are still flying today worldwide.”
The photograph is very dramatic. Take off into the sunset, and have photographer Makanna take a picture.
His sunset pictures are usually the most dramatic.
With that, we can even make an old turkey — a Stearman — look good.



Locomotives for export await shipment at Norfolk Southern’s Lambert’s Point docks. (Photo by Carlos Fink.)

—The May 2013 image in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is new General-Electric locomotives bound for Brazil.
I looked up “Lambert’s Point” in my Google Satellite-views.
It’s near Norfolk, VA, the outlet of Chesapeake Bay into the Atlantic Ocean.
Lambert’s Point is where Norfolk & Western (railroad) transloaded its rivers of coal for export abroad. (Norfolk Southern is a 1982 merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway.)
Giant yards for coal-storage are apparent still in my Google Satellite-view.
The photograph is not very dramatic. But it illustrates.
Missing are the coal transshipment facilities of Lambert’s Point.
Rivers of coal would come from the Pocahontas coal-region to get shipped abroad.
Above all, Norfolk & Western moved coal. It was a very strong railroad, and moving coal was its major market.
It was so tied to coal, it ended up being the last steam-powered railroad in America, coal being the fuel for steam-locomotives.
Locomotives for export is a sideline. And they just as well could have been shipped out of New York city or Philadelphia or Baltimore.
But Lambert’s Point is a seaport too, and has direct railroad service. New York city might be roundabout, Philadelphia too. Baltimore probably would have clearance limitations.
Locomotive #3054 is a GP40-2, perhaps a yard-job for Lambert’s Point.
But it could have moved the shipment over the railroad; a GP40-2 WAS originally a road-unit, and 3054 might have been enough to get that short train from Erie, PA (where the engines were built) to Lambert’s Point.
The locomotives for Brazil look like they might be General-Electric’s Evolution Series. They’re probably on flatcars because they’re not standard-gauge (four feet 8&1/2 inches, as in America) —Track-gauge in Brazil is five feet three inches.

Mowing-season begins

And so the mowing-season begins. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

And so the mad mowing-season begins.
....When I torridly try to keep up with my huge and prolific lawn.
I can’t mow the entire yard in one sitting.
It’s too large. (I mow about three acres.)
Even with my gigantic 48-inch zero-turn lawnmower (above), the whole yard might take 3-4 hours.
And that’s without blowing the cuttings, running my mower back over what I had cut to blow the cutting-clumps to mulch.
Doing so adds to mowing.
I mow by sections. I have my yard divided into five sections.
I might do a section or two, and so burn about 2-3 hours.
Including going back over to mulch the clumps.
May is the worst month. That’s when my lawn is most productive.
Some sections have to get mowed twice a week, like my immediate front-yard, which grows like gangbusters.
By July my lawn is drying out. My entire lawn is down to about every 8-12 days. I have to raise the cutting-height.
Last year was terrible.
Mowing-season began about the time my wife died, and my mower promptly went sour.
I had to jump-start it with my car just to get it lit.
And of course this was happening during May, when my lawn was most prolific.
The starting decompression thingy wasn’t working. That was at least a week without my mower while it was being repaired.
I might have even farmed out my lawn-mowing, but I don’t remember.
So here was my poor mower-man parrying the complete wreck I was after my wife died, with a defective mower at the height of the mowing season.
The mower also broke a belt. I had to replace the super-long cutter belt, about 10 feet, $80. It went from the engine in the rear to the mowing-deck up front.
Not as much insanity yesterday.
The grass stalled my mower once, and threw the cutting-belt.
Rethreading it, I saw it was slightly damaged.
Who knows if it will let me mow what needs to be mowed.
It will need replacing sooner-or-later.
But at least it started normally, and wasn’t throwing the belt with every engagement like last year.
Some of the grass I cut was exceedingly high, at least a foot.
I look outside, and that’s what I have to look forward to the next seven months.
And the whole time I’m dodging rain. I have to look at weather-radar on this ‘pyooter to see if I can mow.

• 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.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. At the time she was 68. I’m now 69.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• I mowed again today (Monday, April 29th, 2013) without incident; about two hours and about 1&1/2 acres.

Yet again

About a month ago, perhaps two months ago, yrs trly fell hard on the ice walking my dog a nearby Boughton Park (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”).
I fell on my left knee, ker-SLAM! I’d fallen before with little consequence, but it was hard getting up this time. My knee hurt, but not enough to call 9-1-1.
I had to give up walking the park that day, and return to my car. It was too dangerous; all ice.
As a result of that fall I got Yak-Trax® ice-cleats.
Recovery seemed to proceed. It was fairly quick, but my knee still hurt slightly later.
The other day, probably last Sunday or Monday (April 21st or 22nd) I fell again, this time onto the concrete floor of my garage. My left knee again, but this time not directly. A glancing blow; this time the bruise was below my knee.
Back to slight pain; it seemed like all healing since my ice-fall had been reversed.
Then Wednesday (April 24th, 2013) I took my dog again to Boughton Park.
She started nosing around the East Pond shoreline, looking for frogs.
She wrapped herself around a tree.
I had to approach the shoreline to unwrap her leash, and ker-SLAM!
Onto my left knee again, this time directly, but dirt not concrete.
Back to trouble getting up again.
I’m 69 years old, and I keep getting slammed to the ground.
The pain is not intense, but it seems like healing keeps getting reversed.
(Last night I had trouble getting my left rubber off.)
I finally had to get mad at my dog, which I try to avoid.
I had to yank her away from the shoreline.
Life seems tortured enough with my wife gone.
But I don’t wanna give up. My dog is very attached to me.

• Boughton Park is a fairly-large town park in East Bloomfield where I walk my dog. I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester. (West Bloomfield is one of the three towns that own and administer the park.) —Boughton Park is about four miles from my house. It used to be the water-supply for the village of Fairport, and has two large ponds held back by earthen retention-dams.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.

Independent Rear-Suspension

My Escape’s IRS. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Illustrated above is one of the main reasons I bought my Ford Escape: Independent Rear-Suspension.
I’d be bopping down the road, get passed by or fall behind an Escape, and I could see the elegant suspension swing-arms at the bottom of the suspension.
They’re angled slightly downward, and stretch out from the center differential, which is solidly mounted to the car-chassis, out toward the axle-ends at the wheels. —The shock-absorbers mount to the ends of those swing-arms.
This is the opposite of what has been seen for eons, a solid rear-axle connecting the two rear-tires. A center differential is in the middle of the axle.
A central tube (the drive-shaft) takes the engine’s power from the front of the car back to that differential and axle.
There are universal-joints to accommodate drive-shaft angling, often at both ends.
Independent Rear-Suspension is a great design. I think the Escape IRS was original to Mazda. Ford affiliated with Japan’s Mazda some time ago, and its original Escape, the first version, was essentially the Mazda Tribute SUV.
(Mazda’s pickup at the time was the Ford Ranger.)
The Mazda-Ford alliance developed some great cars, particularly the Ford Probe.
What I have is the second Escape, slightly rebodied, but essentially still the Mazda. I don’t know who did it, Ford or Mazda. Mazda’s Tribute was upgraded at the same time.
But I think the chassis is Mazda. Later Ford put Independent Rear-Suspension (IRS) on the larger Explorer SUV. It’s not on the Mustang yet; I doubt that differential could take Mustang’s potential power output.
Ford’s new Escape is European-based; no longer a Mazda. To me it also looks ridiculous. I wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole!
Independent Rear-Suspension is a superior design. It does a good job of accommodating bumpy pavement.
Ragged-edge racecars, as opposed to NASCAR, all have Independent Rear-Suspension. NASCAR doesn’t. It still uses a solid rear-axle with the differential mounted therein. (They call ‘em taxi-cabs!)
NASCAR’s race-tracks are usually smooth enough to allow the older layout. —Although the cars might handle better with IRS.
They handle quite well as it is.
The main advantage to Independent Rear-Suspension is taking the differential’s heavy weight out of bump-compliance.
The differential is no longer suspended with the wheels.
With the older layout, a bump has to move the differential’s heavy mass along with the wheels.
The differential’s mass will also slow return of a tire to pavement.
Without that heavy mass the tire will more quickly return to pavement.
With Independent Rear-Suspension, the differential is mounted to the car-chassis. It’s no longer in the rear-axle.
That is, the differential is not suspended. The rear tires can more readily accommodate pavement irregularities.
Independent Rear-Suspension also separates the bumped tire from its opposite tire.
With the older layout, both tires are affected by a bump to one side. The tires are connected by a solid axle. With Independent Rear-Suspension they aren’t.
One tire can be bumped without affecting the opposite tire.
Despite that, the solid rear-axle with differential has been made to handle quite well.
Never-the-less, Independent Rear-Suspension is state-of-the-art.
I used to notice the affects of a suspended differential on my Chevrolet Vega (a ’72).
The chassis was so stiff (before it rusted), the Vega handled great.
But toss it into a bumpy curve, and the back-end would jump to the outside as the heavy rear-axle took its time getting back to pavement.
Give it a few years — i.e. let it rust — and all bets were off.
The front fenderwells contributed to chassis-stiffness. When they rusted away, the front-end of the car drooped.
I really liked that Vega at first. My previous car (a Triumph TR250), by comparison, was an aluminum ladder. —But my Vega rusted to smithereens!
Independent Rear-Suspension on an SUV is a stretch. My Honda CR-V (a 2003) also had Independent Rear-Suspension. Many of the SUVs I’ve seen are the older layout.
Both the Escape and the CR-V are All-Wheel-Drive. I need All-Wheel-Drive to -a) easily negotiate icy farm-tracks chasing trains, and -b) reduce the likelihood of having to snowblow my long driveway.
The fact an SUV is frequently All-Wheel-Drive requires getting the engine-output to the rear axle. If not All-Wheel-Drive, the Escape and CR-V are Front Wheel Drive.
The engines in the Escape and CR-V are transverse, between the front-wheels, 90 degrees from the length of the car.
The older layout usually has the engine parallel to the length of the car.
Both the Escape and the CR-V have to turn the engine output 90 degrees to rotate that driveshaft. (You can see it in my picture below.)
So you might as well design in Independent Rear-Suspension.
Mazda designed it into their Tribute SUV, the first version of the Escape; and it’s still there in my Escape, the second version. (The second version still has the Mazda chassis.)
It sure attracted me: an SUV with a state-of-the-art chassis. My CR-V was also Independent Rear-Suspension, but not as dog-friendly as the Escape, among other problems.
The CR-V was a great train-chaser, but it was 10 years old. —Plus there were detriments about it, and worst of all it wasn’t dog-friendly.
So every time I saw an Escape I noticed that Independent Rear-Suspension.

I’ve included the photo below to indicate I finally did what did in the past, which was “get out and get under.”


Get out and get under. (That big canister at right is a muffler.) (Photo by BobbaLew.)

That is, I drove my Escape over my pit.
My garage has a pit. We designed it into our new-house construction. That is, our builder had to build in a pit.
It’s not elaborate. It’s only cinder-block walls with a concrete floor.
I have to insert a ladder to get down into it.
Our builder took a major hit building that pit.
The town wanted ventilation. The builder had to install an eight-inch PVC vent-pipe that set him back $500.
Our builder was fair about that. He swallowed the expense.
I never used the pit much, just for oil-changes, and once transmission-fluid.
Not too long ago, an old friend, since deceased, a retired RTS bus-driver, brought out his hotrod ’49 Ford to use my pit.
We attempted to remove the steering-box. We got quite far, but failed. There was a trick to it: mainly removing floor-panels. But we never would have got that far without that pit. —Disconnecting the Pittman-arm, for example.
’49 Ford steering-boxes were notoriously sloppy. Centered the steering-wheel had almost a full turn of play.
A modified Volvo steering-box could be installed to replace the original Ford steering-box, and thereby reduce the play.
That was what happened, although our first intent was to see if the Ford steering-box needed to be rebuilt (overhauled). —It didn’t.
My friend never saw any benefit from that Volvo steering-box. He had Parkinson’s Disease, and was already quite weak. The Volvo steering-box was manageable for me, but too much for him.
’49 Fords aren’t power-steering.
So, take my Escape over my pit. —Took long enough!
Used to be I’d throughly check every car I purchased. Was it within my wherewithal? Was service easy? Could I work on it myself, change the oil, etc?
I’d pop the hood before I purchased it; if I didn’t check out the underneath before I purchased it, I did almost as soon as I brought it home.
30 years ago owners could still work on their cars. I worked on my cars from my Vega on, but as I got older things got more complex. Changing oil was all I ended up doing.
The last vehicle I changed oil on was my Toyota Sienna minivan. My pit made it easier.
I tried with my CR-V, but the oil-filter was a guaranteed skinned knuckle. My Honda dealer did “oil-changes for life,” so I farmed it out to them.
As I got older I gave up using my pit. I even farmed out oil-changes for the van.
My pit had a cover; 4-by-6 timbers above the pit.
My builder left a four-inch recess atop the cinder-block, so I could put in those timbers.
4-by-6s were supposed to support a car, but I’ve never missed. The town wanted me to install steel tire-barriers to keep a car out of the pit. I never did.
What I do is drive my car over the covered pit, and then remove the timbers.
I also store my heavy wooden extension-ladder atop the cover. To uncover my pit I have to remove that ladder first.
As I began doing all this, it seemed I might be attempting more than I should. I’m 69 years old. Strength seems to be withering, especially in my legs.
I dragged out the ladder, and then drove my Escape over the still-covered pit.
I then removed a couple timbers, inserted my step-ladder, went down in the pit, and began removing the rest of the cover-timbers.
It was the most I’ve ever removed, all but one. There are 31 timbers, so I removed 30.
Changing the oil on our van required removal of eight. Changing the transmission-fluid on our old Chevrolet Astrovan required 16 or more.
Once the cover was removed, I got my camera, and took the picture.
Now to reassemble everything.
I reinstalled the cover-timbers, and backed my Escape out from over my pit.
Next was relocating my heavy extension-ladder atop the pit-cover.
I attempted to lift the right ladder-side to straighten out the pull-rope.
I tripped and lost my balance, and fell heavily onto the concrete garage-floor.
I landed on the same left knee I pranged about a month ago when I fell on ice at the park.
“Should I even be doing this at my age?” I thought as I got back up.
My left-knee hurt, but not enough to call 9-1-1.
With IRS the heavy differential is not suspended. It’s not compromising bump-response in a corner.
I’ve had Independent Rear-Suspensions that both looked and acted terrible.
But on my Escape it looks and acts great.
In the ‘70s I remember a local off-road rallyist who rallied a Triumph TR6. It had Independent Rear-Suspension, a terrible design. He was tempted to take out the IRS and install the solid-axle with center-differential from a TR4.
The rules wouldn’t have allowed that!
The TR6 was a stylish upgrade after the TR250 (in England the TR5), one of which I had. It was a ’68, and had Independent Rear-Suspension.
It was a terrible design. One got the feeling Independent Rear-Suspension got engineered in just so Triumph could say they had IRS. (The TR4A was a TR4 with Independent Rear-Suspension.)
The bottom swing-arms were aluminum, and one of mine got bent out of alignment in an accident.
The bottom swing-arms were stubby, just so they could be hinged to a frame, which the TR series still had.
The bottom swing-arms of my Escape are long, as if the whole car was designed for IRS from the beginning.
The Escape is unit-construction. There’s no frame.

• “We” (“our”) is my wife-and-I. She died April 17th, 2012. Together we designed the house I’m still living in.
• “RTS” is Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for RTS. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability.

Concerning my well-being

The one-year anniversary of my wife’s death occurred the other day, Wednesday, April 17th, 2013.
I was deluged with a torrent of cards, e-mails, and phonecalls concerning my well-being.
I was taken back by this, since I was always told I was a disgusting, reprehensible, Of-the-Devil ne’er-do-well.
The fact I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to question this, indicated I was rebellious against the all-knowing wisdom of my judges.
So for people to be concerned about my welfare seemed untoward, at least unexpected.
College, long ago (’62-’66), was the first time I encountered a positive approach to myself. Adult authority-figures there valued my opinions. I was enthusiastically welcomed into philosophical discussions.
It was the complete opposite of what I got as a teenager, that I was “degraded;” as I was once told by a church-deacon.
My father was incensed I didn’t worship him. He used to clobber me.
I finally left home, tired of the madness, and worst of all I didn’t return, the prodigal son.
My wife contributed. She valued my very being, unlike my family. She didn’t surmise me as rebellious.
To my mind I was always borderline insane. My wife was stable, although apparently she considered suicide as a teenager.
That was because she was unable to believe in God like all her women relatives; that is, be a Christian.
For this she was labeled “guilty.”
Our college, Houghton College (“HO-tin;” not “how” or “who”) in western New York, was pretty religious, yet we both graduated unbelievers.
My attendance there was a compromise with my father, who wanted me to attend the same Bible-institute he attended.
But (Gasp!), I wanted a college-degree, and at that time his Bible-institute wasn’t a college. (Now it is; Moody College, at that time Moody Bible-institute.)
Moody was in Chicago, an extremely urban setting.
Houghton was extremely rural, more welcoming (less frightening) than Chicago.
Why my wife attended Houghton was never clear. I suppose it was because she had to attend a New York college to get financial-aid. —And other New York colleges wouldn’t accept her. She graduated as valedictorian of her high-school class, but it was a tiny class in the rural outback.
Despite that, I’d say she was smarter than me.
Insanity was always apparent in my mother’s family, though not overwhelming.
My mother would “lose it” at times, plus an aunt was committed to an asylum, and her family sundered.
My father came from a tortured past. Apparently he did quite well in school, and even skipped a grade.
His mother was very assertive, and as a product of the Depression he was required to “GET A JOB” as soon as he finished high-school — that is, not graduate college as he could have done.
His going to Chicago to attend Moody was perceived as “running away.”
He bought heavily into religiosity. It gave his life meaning — and made him feel morally superior to everyone else.
My father was not awash in self-worth, but religiosity gave him that.
The other thing I see one year after my wife’s passing is how extraordinary she was.
Prior to her death I took her for granted.
Although there were various distractions over our 44-year marriage.
As a bus-driver I attracted a lot of female attention. I’m told it was our frumpy uniforms; they signified a constant income.
There was one girl, a young high-school student, who was very attractive.
It came to a stand-off. Did I wanna switch or stay? I elected to stay. I decided I had done pretty good, so I was loathe to walk away.
Much earlier it seemed the insanity was getting the better of me. But I put a stop to it, and in so doing, I suppose, saved our marriage.
There were other female distractions, but I stuck with what I had. To my mind she was much better than the alternatives.
We pretty much thought alike. We finished each other’s sentences.
This all benefited me after my stroke. My wife was very committed, and may very well be why I recovered as well as I did. —Although I was ornery too, so I refused to listen when people told me I’d be a vegetable.
My wife used to say she didn’t wanna die and thereby miss all my snide remarks, twisted humor, and different thoughts.
She also covered for me after my stroke. She did things I lacked confidence doing, like phonecalls to solve problems.
I have since discovered I can pretty much do these things myself, so I regret I didn’t show her that. (She worried about me.)
So now that she’s gone, I see what an extraordinary person she was.
People tell me that, and now in hindsight I see it.

• The “prodigal son” story is Biblical; my father was very Biblical. A rebellious son returns broken to his family; which is what my father wanted when I left home. (The fact I didn’t indicated I was “hard-hearted” rebellious.)
• 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 environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability.

The moving-finger having writ moves on

Seems just the other day the TV-news was deluging us with images of Kim Jong Un’s massive minions frenziedly goosestepping through a gigantic public square in Pyongyang, while chubby boy-wonder and his hatted generals in dark aviator-sunglasses clapped like trained seals.
A scene right out of those grainy Nazi propaganda films.
Garbled footage, seemingly from the ‘60s, was aired of intermediate-range rockets being launched.

Boy-Wonder.

Boy-Wonder was threatening nuclear Armageddon against South Korea, Japan, and U.S. bases in the Pacific.
No matter those minions would scatter like insects if our country launched a counterstrike.
But then suddenly two bombs explode at the finish of the Boston Marathon.
Welcome to the back-burner, Kim! Suddenly your show-of-strength collapses into a whimper.
And the spotlight was such fun. Bluster makes Boy-Wonder the center of attention. Dennis Rodman even, huggee-poo with a dayglo freak!
For about a decade I worked at a newspaper in nearby Canandaigua, the Canandaigua Daily Messenger.
If there was anything I learned, it was how transient the news was — that the significance thereof seemed dependent on how much coverage it got.
It seemed like we made the news. We’d cover a town-meeting or something, yet suddenly it got skonked by a fly-infestation, all because some farmer spread chicken-manure on his field.
A fly-infestation might not be that newsworthy, but news-hounds on our staff decided it was.
They’d gravitate toward it just like the flies we reported.
A bombing occurs in Boston, and suddenly the media mobilizes, as well they should.
Suddenly everyone is going to Boston. Boy-Wonder’s noisy histrionics disappear, since they’re no longer reported.
So the bellicose Conservatives rise up, complaining about how the media makes the news. —They wanna manufacture the news too; look at Fox.
Granny would show at the Messenger reception-desk wondering why her chicken-barbecue hadn’t made the front-page above-the-fold.
Well, maybe a fly-infestation might sell more papers.
Even if the results of a town-board meeting might be more important.
Boy-Wonder is gonna have to actually launch nuclear Armageddon to return to the top of the media-circus heap.
And in so doing probably kill himself. (Dennis will have no one to hug.)
And now the Boston Marathon bombing is skonked by the massive explosion of a fertilizer-plant in Texas.

Today’s the day

This is over 40 years ago, but is the image that was always in my head. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013, the one-year anniversary of my wife’s death.
My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
As I recall, April 17th last year was a Tuesday. We had taken my wife to Hospeace House outside Naples, NY, on Monday April 16th.
Hospeace is a hospice. We had tried to do in-home hospice, but it became messy.
Hospeace could be more punctual about medications.
My wife lasted there a day. She was dying before we went there, although I wasn’t aware of it.
I still haven’t computed it.
I thought I’d be bringing her home from hospice, but no one ever gets out of hospice alive.
I know my wife is dead — her ashes are under her father’s sugar-maple on our property — but I keep feeling she’s still alive.
This is despite her being gone a year.
Lots of things happened over that year.
A lot of lawn got mowed, plus my mower was fixed when it went sour.
And I’m still alive despite not being compulsive about cleanliness like my wife.
I also have the new camera I considered upgrading to.
That was because my previous camera failed.
I also purchased a newer car, trading the two cars we once drove.
So far that is my only step forward. Most of my surroundings are just as my wife left them. Her “to-do” list, in her writing, is still on the kitchen counter. It includes a funeral-home. (Our safe-deposit signature-card at the bank has her signature.)
It isn’t that I’m attached. At least I don’t think so.
It’s just that so much needs to be done, and I don’t have the wherewithal to do it.
It took 10 months just to make that car-purchase.
What bothers me is I’m very happy with my new car, yet my wife will never see it.
No doubt I’ll get a letter from Rev. Max Bishop. I got one at three months, then six months. He probably has me in a tickler.
Sorry I disrespect his concern, but I feel he makes a living writing these letters — and they’re probably in his computer. (Copy/assemble.)
I guess he heads bereavement-counseling for Ontario-Yates Hospice. I live in Ontario County. Ontario-Yates Hospice is what we used. —Yates is another county.
Rev. Max is almost an hour away.
He suggested I call, so I did, and I got a machine.
I left messages twice, but no response each time.
I was devastated at first, but now I guess I no longer am.
I still cry a lot. Every day feels sad.

Her daffodils are up. (Photo by Bobbalew.)

After the death of my wife I became aware of a simple truth.
More-often-than-not partners in a long marriage rarely die at the same time.
Usually one dies first, leaving the other alone.
My wife and I always thought it would be me that died first.
My wife was sturdier stock than me. Her mother is still alive at age-97. Most of the women in my wife’s family lasted well into their 90s. I predict her mother will make 100; and she still lives independently.
But my wife got cancer. I’m told it was not my time yet.

• “Tickler” is a bank-term, or at least was. —I once worked for a bank. We kept a “tickler” in the loan department to tell us when loans came due.

Mustang

(Photo by Jeff Koch.)

My Hemmings Classic Car magazine has finally done it. They featured the darling car of the Boomer generation, the Mustang.
Took ‘em long enough. Hemmings Classic Car has been around for some time.
The Mustang is the car that reversed the fortunes of Ford Motor Company, which prior seemed to be falling apart.
General Motors could have done it. They already had components in place: their fabulous SmallBlock V8 engine, and a four-on-the-floor transmission.
But GM didn’t have a car. Ford had its Falcon, which could be reconfigured into a Mustang.
There already had been sporting versions of the Falcon, like the Futura with Ford’s new small V8 and a four-on-the-floor tranny.
Chevrolet had it’s Corvair, which was hardly a Falcon.
You could get sporting versions like the Monza, but it was weird.
Its engine was air-cooled and in the rear. The Corvair was a great car, but weird.
It didn’t sell as well as the Falcon — what sold were the sporting versions.
The success of the Monza told Lee Iacocca of Ford there was a market for sporty cars, not weird like the Corvair.
So take the Falcon and put a sporting body on it.
Move the passenger-compartment back so it could have a long hood and short rear-deck, sporting attributes.
Give it the new Ford small V8 and a four-on-the-floor tranny. Give it attractive styling up front.
VIOLA! Slam-dunk attractive and sold like hotcakes.
It’s what American-youth wanted. A sporty-car that wasn’t weird.
It was such a success, Chevrolet had to bring out its Camaro to compete with it.
And Chrysler had to redesign its Barracuda to make it long-hood/short-deck.
Henry Ford II, head-honcho of Ford Motor Company, and grandson of company-founder Old Henry, was justifiably hesitant to invest in the Mustang after the Edsel debacle.
But the Mustang wasn’t an imitator, and the market for sporty-cars was obvious.
The Mustang was what America wanted, and it was Ford that supplied it, not General Motors.
Chevrolet had the components for a ponycar, particularly its phenomenal SmallBlock V8 engine.
Ford’s small V8 was a response to the Chevrolet SmallBlock, but it was Ford that brought out sporty-cars.
The Mustang was such a success, the General had to respond. The Camaro is Chevrolet’s Mustang. Like the Mustang is essentially a sporty Falcon, the Camaro is a sporty Chevy-II, Chevrolet’s Falcon clone, what Chevrolet had to do after the Corvair failed.
And the Corvair was eventually ditched. 1969 was its final year. —And that was after a later version was introduced for 1965 that was much better, almost a Porsche.
American buyers would be more inclined to purchase a Mustang than a Porsche, another weird car.
When I was in college a classmate’s father purchased his son a Mustang, but it was only an inline-six, three-on-the-floor.
Nice to look at, but more economy transportation. What we dreamed about were the V8 Mustangs with four-on-the-floor.
Although I’m from before Mustangs.
The cars I dreamed about all had the SmallBlock Chevrolet V8 with four-on-the-floor.
With stuff like that, Chevrolet could have hit the sporty-car market first, but didn’t.

• The Chevrolet “SmallBlock” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 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 SmallBlock. It was made in various larger displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “SmallBlock” was revolutionary in its time.
• “The General” is General Motors.

Stupid me

The illustration of my new car I used in yesterday’s blog is not what I intended.
I returned home Tuesday afternoon, after getting it washed, then parked outside in the sun for a photograph.
That was the illustration I was going to use, but my camera wouldn’t shoot.
So I used a photo I had already uploaded to PhotoBucket, my blog-image source.
That picture was disconcerting. It was more appropriate to the blog it went with, the view in my garage with both cars gone, the cars my wife and I drove.
My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer almost one year ago. At the time she was 68. I miss her dearly. (I’m now 69.)
So, NOW WHAT? My camera’s not working.
Not the first time. It didn’t work the other day when I wanted to shoot a flash-picture of my dog chewing her deer-antler.
Deer-antlers are much safer than bones. Bones splinter. Deer-antlers don’t. My dog is thrilled with her deer-antler.
I was gonna blog it.
So much for that! So much for a new-car picture.
I called Rowe Photographic (as in “ow;” now “row-EEEE”) in Rochester (NY), where I bought my camera, a Nikon D7000.
They deferred and had me call Nikon Tech-Support.
Nikon wondered what memory-card I was using. My card was “Performance,” not one of their recommended chips.
So, plan long-ass trip to Rowe Photographic to buy a correct card.
Nikon promised to e-mail me a list of their recommended memory-chips, but never did.
I Googled Nikon’s recommended chips.
Rowe Photographic is at least 45/50 minutes from my house. I figured my dog could stand it.
I was gonna take the dog to the park this morning (Wednesday, April 10th, 2013) and hit Rowe afterward, but it was raining, so no park.
At Rowe I went in and a kindly gentleman looked at my camera.
“We gotta get back in business,” I said.
He poked around, and noticed my shooting-option was set at “remote.”
That way it only shoots “remote;” otherwise it won’t shoot.
He switched it back to “single;” my camera will shoot single shots, low-speed multiple shots, high-speed multiple shots, and “remotely.” —I rarely shoot other than “single,” although “remote” sounds interesting.
Problem solved: simple fix = stupid me.
“I didn’t think of that,” I cried.
“Too many buttons,” the clerk said. “How about a single ‘on-off’ switch?”
Back in business.
I tested outside before leaving.
I could try again, but -a) the car has to look just washed, and -b) it has to be sunny.
I probably won’t bother. Once published, a blog is quickly forgotten. On to my next.
Why change if it’s already been viewed?

• My current dog is “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara), a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s seven, and is my sixth Irish-Setter, a high-energy dog. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. [Scarlett was from a failed backyard breeder.] By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad. She’s my fourth rescue.)
• “The park” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin” as in “wow”) Park, where I walk my dog. It’s a fairly-large town park in East Bloomfield. I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester. (West Bloomfield is one of the three towns that own and administer the park.)

I’m impressed

My new car; a 2012 Ford Escape. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Much as I was very depressed letting go of the two cars my wife and I drove, I really like my new car, illustrated above.
My wife died almost a year ago, leaving me a sad and lonely widower.
Our two cars were a 2003 Honda CR-V, and a 2005 All-Wheel-Drive Toyota Sienna minivan.
I really liked the CR-V. It was great for chasing trains — I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2; I’m 69.
The CR-V was a pleasant drive; slightly uncomfortable for my wife, but fine for me, assuming I was driving.
The van was really just having vans since our first, a used 1979 Ford E250. (That E250 was my all-time favorite vehicle.)
I had a Chevrolet Astrovan after the E250, and the Toyota replaced the Astro.
After my wife died, two cars for only one person seemed silly. I could have kept the Sienna, but that also seemed silly when -a) my need for a van disappeared, and -b) it was large.
I really liked the CR-V, but it was 10 years old.
It was also less dog-friendly than our van.
But the CR-V was a great train-chaser. With All-Wheel-Drive it could negotiate difficult conditions, and as an SUV it had a lot of under-clearance. I could safely drive dirt-tracks for farm-tractors.
So I wanted another SUV, preferably more dog-friendly than the CR-V.
I looked at the new Honda CR-V. It was more dog-friendly, but looked stupid. More a crossover than an SUV; that is, it was shaped like a tall car.
I also looked at the new Mazda CX-5, a competitor for Honda’s new CR-V. But it too looked more like a crossover.
What blew me away was the previous Ford Escape, the most dog-friendly SUV I had ever seen.
My wife’s boss when she worked at the West Bloomfield Post-Office, the Postmaster, got one over a year ago, and she let me look at it.
“Why can’t they all be like this?” I cried. The bottom seat-cushions folded forward 90 degrees filling the dog-swallowing gap behind the front-seats, and the rear seat-cushions flopped down into a flat floor.
It was the most dog-friendly SUV I had ever seen.
I started looking for cars right about the time Ford stopped making the previous Escape, and introduced the new Escape.
I wasn’t interested in the new Escape; another crossover, plus it looked really stupid.
I’ve gotten into the habit of purchasing new cars — for cash. I end up being the owner free-and-clear. No financing.
I poked around on the Internet.
Locally only Shepard Ford in nearby Canandaigua had used Escapes. I’d prefer new, but by then a previous Escape had to be used.
Shepard had a previous Escape with only 2,800 miles.
So what was wrong with that? Sounded like a lemon!
The salesman claimed it was purchased new by someone who promptly died, and the car was sold barely used back to the dealer.
My new-car delivery-invoice says somewhere in Pennsylvania, so it was probably auctioned.
Shepard likes to sell low-milage used-cars, so picked it up.
Shepard had another used Escape at 19,000 miles, but it felt used, this other one felt new.
So now I have a previous Escape, what I’d rather have, that feels new.
It’s everything my CR-V wasn’t. It has a V6 engine; the CR-V was only four cylinders. It was okay, but sort of weak.
I’m sure my Escape is heavier, but it feels stronger.
And of course my Escape is much more dog-friendly than the CR-V was.
The CR-V was okay; there was no dog-swallowing gap behind the front seats, a common SUV flaw.
But the folded-up rear-seats blocked the rear-door. My dog fell. The Escape doesn’t do that.
The Escape floor looks higher than my CR-V, but it’s flat (the earlier Subarus weren’t), it has plenty of roof-clearance, and I could lift my dog into it if I had to. —I did with a previous dog when she could no longer jump in.
The Escape also solves the keyless-entry problem.
At 2003, my CR-V didn’t have keyless-entry, at least not the cheapest version we had.
My Sienna had keyless-entry, but it was a separate fob. I never carried it, so it went unused.
My Escape’s keyless-entry is right on the key. I’m only carrying that key, not two fobs, so I can use keyless-entry.
My Escape also has Bluetooth® to my cellphone. It’s connected, but I haven’t used it yet.
Best of all it’s an SUV, much like my old CR-V. A great train-chaser, yet a pleasant ride.
It ain’t a Jeep; I don’t tackle jeep-trails.
But for chasing trains over dirt-roads and/or ice it’s perfect.
(I remember chasing trains in a car. -A) it wouldn’t cross an icy grade-crossing for lack of All-Wheel-Drive, and -B) my friend was afraid of bottoming the oil-pan on a farm dirt-track.)

• My current dog is “Scarlett” (two “Ts,” as in Scarlett O’Hara), a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s seven, and is my sixth Irish-Setter, a high-energy dog. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. [Scarlett was from a failed backyard breeder.] By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad. She’s my fourth rescue.)
• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where I 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 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• “Keyless-entry” is a radio-fob that unlocks all the car-doors — or locks.
• “Bluetooth” is where one’s cellphone transmits a phonecall to a radio-receiver earpiece or something — for example the car-radio speakers — so a cellphone-call can be handled without finagling the cellphone.

You ain’t helping me, Word®

I consider myself fairly competent on a computer.
Not a techno-maven, but better than many.
It was better when my wife was alive.
There were two of us; so if some strange hairball occurred, two of us were on the case.
Usually it was me that figured a solution, although my wife had input.
That was only because it was me that knew what I wanted. I was using my wife as a tool.
Regarding computers, there’s the word-processor issue; namely what word-processor do I use?
I have two: Microsoft’s Word, and Apple’s “Pages.” —Actually I have three. I also have Neo-Office, but it’s buried, and I don’t use it. It’s too flakey!
“Pages” is my default word-processor. I don’t use Word; it punishes stroke-survivors like me with sloppy keyboarding. Hit some errant key by mistake, and you get sent off into the unknown, and/or everything you just typed is vaporized.
Gates seems to be getting even. Dare make a mistake and you get punished.
“Pages” is tolerant of sloppy keyboarding.
“Pages” is the most recent iteration of Appleworks, which no longer exists. “Pages” has Appleworks-6 in it. It even opens old Appleworks files with all the formatting.
Word opens only as text.
I fell into Appleworks at the Messenger newspaper, since they were Apple Macintosh based.
I tried “Word for MAC,” but it was too unfriendly. It has certain functions Appleworks didn’t have, which is all I use Word for.
But for general word-processing, I use “Pages,” and before that I used Appleworks.
When I first started, it was Appleworks-5. I think Appleworks was ClarisWorks renamed after Apple purchased it.
My home machine had Appleworks-5, and then I purchased Appleworks-6 when it came out.
When I switched to this MacBook Pro laptop, I wanted to install Appleworks-6, but I was told Appleworks no longer existed. It had been replaced by “Pages.”
My ‘pyooter-guy, who set up this here laptop, installed Neo-Office, some MAC version of a PC word-processor free-ware.
I used it a while, but it was too flakey. It’s spellcheck was undependable.
“Pages” was not free, although there was a free 30-day trial.
I tried it a while, and found it better. So I purchased “Pages.”
I’m essentially a copy/paster, taking advantage of the personal-computer’s most outstanding function.
I have a slew of “Pages” text-files I copy/paste into other applications; for example, addresses I copy/paste into Word’s envelope-generator.
That’s Pages-to-Word.
Yesterday (Sunday, April 7th, 2013) I had to do an envelope for which I didn’t have a Pages address-file.
So I fired up Word’s envelope-generator and cranked directly into that.
Okay, save into my Pages business addresses.
Won’t compute; it’s a Word-file.
So copy from the generator window, and paste into a blank Pages file and save that.
Also won’t work! Word’s envelope-generator is not a text-file.
It’s a PNG or maybe a PDF.
I can’t copy-paste Word-to-Pages, but I can do Pages-to-Word.
To create a Pages address-file of this particular address, I gotta crank it myself.
You’re not helping me, Word.
Thank you, Bill! Why are you always so unfriendly to me?

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. At the time she was 68. I’m now 69 — she was a month older than me.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• “Gates” and “Bill” are Bill Gates, head-honcho of Microsoft.
• The “Messenger” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost seven years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I 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 14 miles away.)
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.

Wi-fi router reset

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday, April 6th, 2013) yrs trly forked over 43 smackaroos to have his wi-fi router reset.
$3 was Ontario County sales-tax; so the service-charge was $40.
I probably coulda done it myself.
This was necessary because my wi-fi “key” disappeared when my wife died.
She was the only one that used wi-fi. I was hard-wired to our Internet-cable. My wife’s ‘pyooter was in another room.
We set it up, but that was long ago.
This ‘pyooter also memorized the wi-fi key, so it could log in wi-fi.
Which is why I couldn’t ascertain it. Once memorized the key is no longer accessible.
That didn’t matter to this ‘pyooter. It was hard-wired.
But my iPhone wanted wi-fi to update its operating-system.
Without the key I couldn’t connect.
I had a hunch what the key was, but nothing worked.
So my ‘pyooter-store suggested resetting the wi-fi router.
At that point my niece weighed in, suggesting she had done a wi-fi reset herself.
Well yeah, but I hafta know what is going on; like -a) where to connect, and -b) does a menu appear on my ‘pyooter-screen?
My niece was busy, so we couldn’t try it ourselves. We were also far from this ‘pyooter.
I also know doing things myself often leads to hairballs.
Years ago I decided to change the rear brake-shoes on a car we had at that time.
It turned into a day-long project. This is common.
What takes maybe 15 minutes for an experienced mechanic turns into hours for someone like me lacking knowledge.
So, farm out a project I probably coulda done myself.
Let my ‘pyooter-store reset the wi-fi router.
Resetting was simple. The router has a “reset” activated by a pin or paper-clip.
But that resets back to nothing.
I had a “key” so my neighbor’s daughter across-the-street didn’t steal my wi-fi Internet.
Which is why my wife and I activated the key long ago. For years we had no key.
The network-name was probably the same as before. The “key” was probably the same too, my old Transit badge-number.
But that’s only seven characters. The router wanted eight, in which case I just add the number 1 to my badge-number.
Which is probably why my various tries didn’t work earlier. I was trying seven-character variations. It probably woulda worked if I tried an eight-character variation, but when an iPhone is hurling technical gyrations at me, I start looking for human help.
So now I’m out 43 buckaroos, but back in business.
Both my ‘pyooter and iPhone are logged in to my wi-fi router.
Zippity-doo! This ‘pyooter goes back to hard-wire, but my iPhone is no longer throwing fits.

• I live in Ontario County.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. At the time she was 68. I’m 69.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• RE: “old Transit badge-number...” —“Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years. My “badge-number” was my employee-number.

Cherry-Top

A ’56 Buick is under the arrow. (Photo by Fred Kern.)

A photograph, illustrated above, in my April Monthly Calendar-Report, has prompted an interesting e-mail exchange.
It’s a railfan photograph, but it has a flaw. Other railfans are in the photograph, along with their car, a black 1956 Buick. The photograph was shot in 1957.
It’s the one thing we hated as railfan photographers. We’d stake out a prime location, and some other railfan would wander into the picture.
For this we established photo-lines. Railfan photographers would all line up in a photo-line, and then hope some other railfan didn’t set up in front of the photo-line.
If someone did, we’d all complain, and hope the miscreant moved.
Obviously the miscreant didn’t move in the picture above, but the photographer shot anyway.
The image was too dramatic, and the ’56 Buick is barely visible.
You can barely see it in my blog-picture, which is why I applied the red arrow.
But the Buick is fairly apparent in my calendar-picture.
So I mentioned this miscreant in my calendar-report; which I spray to various constant-readers all over the planet.
One commented that steam-locomotive picture was extraordinary, so I asked if he saw the Buick.
He hadn’t, so I sent the arrowed picture.
“Must be a hidden cop takin’ pictures,” he said. “A bear in the bushes.”
“I don’t see a cherry-top,” I said.

A REAL cherry-top on a ’53 Chevy police-cruiser.

Years ago police cruisers had only a single red rotating beacon atop their cars. A “cherry-top.”
Now it’s a gigantic top-wide light-bar festooned with flashing strobes, red and blue and even yellow.
That light-bar has become lo-profile, to not destroy aerodynamics and top-speed.
And flashing strobes have even been installed behind the grill.
You think you’re being pulled over by a fireworks display.
But years ago it was just that single cherry-top.
So if that ’56 Buick was a police-cruiser, it would have a cherry-top.
“Cherry-Top” made it into a Bruce Springsteen lyric.
“There's a ballet being fought out in the alley
Until the local cops
Cherry Tops
Rips this holy night.”
You have to be from the ‘60s to understand “Cherry-Top.”
Restoring order-out-of-chaos, ending youthful exuberance.
The lyrics are from “Jungleland” on the “Thunder-Road” album.
To me this song makes a mistake; it ain’t hip.
“The midnight gang's assembled
And picked a rendezvous for the night
They'll meet ‘neath that giant Exxon sign
That brings this fair city light.”
In the ‘60s, Exxon was still Esso. Esso became Exxon in 1973. I don’t know that cherry-tops were still in use after 1973.