The Great Train Ride

If you have been following my blog you know that I have a love for railroading.

That being said Faye and I traveled to Akron last Sunday to take a ride on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway. Our trip started out in a "modern" 1950's era, air conditioned, passenger car. The train was being pulled by a "modern" diesel engine of the same era to the midway point of our ride. About 45 minutes away. We were able to disembark the train at that point for a photo op of the train being pulled by the steam engine that would pull us back to Akron. The locomotive that pulled us on the return trip was a late 19th century steam locomotive fueled by coal.

The massive stature of the steam locomotive was very impressive which is why the pictures accompanying this blog are of the locomotive and the tender cars. We really enjoyed the experience. Next time a theme ride maybe. They offer several different theme rides that are a little more pricey but look very fun. If you are interested the website is www.cvsr.com.

EMHE (Extreme Makeover Home Edition)

So if you have been looking at Facebook and you are my friend you know that 1. Extreme Makeover Home Edition was in Columbus this past week 2. I have been enthralled by the aforementioned event. Oh man, I am reviewing too many legal papers, using aforementioned in a sentence. Any who, Faye and I visited the work site on Saturday and then I returned by my lonesome on Sunday.

After the visit in Saturday I was determined to volunteer for the work crew. After we came home on Saturday I visited the websites for the show and the builder and submitted my application to volunteer. On my Sunday visit I made some inquiries about volunteering and discovered that all that was really necessary was to show up with a willingness to work. Cool! I decided to take Tuesday off from my regular job and volunteer, I figured by then most of the accelerated pace framing work would be done and the finishing work would be underway.

Let me also say that on Sunday when I was visiting, Tracy, one of the designers walked by me into the house to do a spot. I was not ready for a celebrity appearances since on Saturday we did not observe any. I tried my best to get my camera, but as my parents used to say I was an hour late and a dollar short. I was determined to get a recognizable picture of Tracy so I made up my mind that I would stay until her return trip back to the secured celebrity area.

I was not expecting the outcome of my diligence to get Tracy's picture. She emerged from the house and I had my camera ready but as they do it had turned itself off. I got a couple of pictures of her as she was walking away. What did I do? I proceeded to stalk her to the end of the spectator area and asked her for a picture. She responded, only if you are in it with me! Her escort grabbed my camera and I posed with her for the picture posted above.

I also posted a picture of my t-shirt and security badge. Since this show is going to air in December there is also a picture of the ever present Santa Clauses for the Christmas themed show. I have more pictures but they show the house, I can't publish them per the non-disclosure statement the show producers made every volunteer sign.

They treated the volunteers "extremely" well. there were coolers full of soda, Gatorade, and a selection of exotic and non-exotic waters everywhere you looked. Also several tents that had tables loaded with bags of chips and stacks of candy bars. Lunch was catered in an air conditioned tent with several flat screen TV's tuned to different stations. Hot food (grilled chicken and seafood stir-fry) and a 20 foot buffet of salads, fruits and desserts.

It was a great experience, that was sweaty, fulfilling work and also a ton of fun.

Update/Apology

I have not posted here in quite a while and for that I apologize. It is not that I have not had anything to post, quite the contrary I have been very busy.

Doing what you may ask? Well first of all there is my gainful employment I do have to help Faye pay the bills for the essentials. Luckily I have a job I enjoy going to and I am there from 7:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. five days a week. I also spend a good amount of time gardening this time of year, not so much lately though do to the ungodly heat we have been experiencing. Then the mundane day to day chores that consume so much of our time, coupled with trying to get a full nights sleep and still arise at 5:3o a.m. work days and there hasn't been much time left over.

I will also admit that when I get on the computer blogging is not at the top of my list of what I want to accomplish. So if you are one of my followers again I apologize, but that is the end of my apologies.

I am going to try to be better about my posts and attempt to post more often with content that reflects my more important accomplishments and possibly share some of my larger missteps. Well if you have stayed with this until now I am going to end your pain and ease on out of here for now.

More cabinet making.

We were hit by a major snow storm Friday. I haven't heard official statistics but my guess is we got about a foot of snow. Finnigan is loving it even though he has to lope along like a deer to get around the back yard. I will post a picture of him up to his belly in snow. I also snapped a picture of the deck with the rope lighting on and the snow on it. I have had time to work on the cabinets due to Faye being on a rescue mission to South Carolina. It seems my sister-in-law is still trying to play bumper cars with semi trucks. She is basically ok, she has some fractured vertebrae the doctors say a few weeks in a brace and she will be fine. So I will post a couple of pictures of the drawer cabinets, one is complete except for finish sanding and the other needs sides and sanded. Ready for the painting when Faye gets home tomorrow. That's all for now, updates when the mood strikes me.

Woodworking 301

It has been ages since I posted to this blog. I am working on a new project and thought I would share the progress. No I haven't given up the train layout, I am just exercising a few of my other interests and hopefully helping my lovely wife to get better organized, and more productive in her crafting endeavors. I agreed to construct a crafting station (counter-top and cabinets with drawers) for her craft room. I have started the project by drawing plans that I will download the plans and a couple of the first pictures of the build. I am starting by building the two drawer cabinets, so far I have completed the frames and the face of one cabinet and started the face of the other one. I am using a new method and tool on this build I purchased a dovetail jig at Harbor tool and freight. I priced these jigs and similar jigs cost anywhere from $100 to $200 and I bought this one for $34.00. Quite a savings if I do say so myself. I have set the jig up and made some test cuts and have it set where I want it so tomorrow I plan on dovetailing the first drawer. I will take a couple of pictures of the jig and the process and finished product . Here are the pictures and plans for your approval!

Summer is over :(

It has been quite a few weeks since I last posted. The golf league has ended and my partner and I won the scoring for the league. I don't really think I can call it a championship since there wasn't a play off. There hasn't been a lot of work on the railroad due to all of the good weather activities , and if that wasn't enough I installed a new laminate floor in our kitchen last week. I have included a picture of the floor and one of my garden, and a picture of the sunflowers I have surrounding our air-conditioning unit. I do have to be honest and admit part of the sunflowers are free gratis and part I planted from seed. So with gardening and outside maintenance, golf I have been very busy. To top it off Faye and I spent one Saturday traveling to southeastern Ohio to go to a "Chile Pepper Festival" . The drive was beautiful through the Hocking hills and Appalachian foothill area. I had prefaced out trip by telling Faye I had found this festival online on a something to do this weekend type of webpage and I wasn't sure what we were going to see at the festival. I had thought it could be pretty lame but I had no idea just how lame it could be. We arrived at this little town and followed the directions to the festival. We arrived and I really just wanted to turn around and leave but we got out and walked around. There were a lot of young ladies dressed in fancy "prom" type dresses milling about and there was one food concession trailer selling hot dogs and sausages, there was a fairly impressive stage that was very out of place and on the far side of the field there was 3 or 4 vendor type canopy tents with people selling there cast offs flea market style. Oh and I forgot to mention there was an ambulance just in case somebody over dosed on fun (read boredom). Notice I haven't said a word about chile peppers! Well the chile pepper festival did not have one single pepper on display there was no oversize fiberglass red chile pepper, there was no chile pepper roasting going on, there was no chile pepper largest grown contest going on, there was no chile pepper tasting tent, tasting line, or salsa tasting. THERE WAS NO CHILE PEPPER!!! We did have a good afternoon meal on the way home from the non-festival. In the Hocking hills there was an Amish style restaurant with a buffet going on that had some tasty vittles so all was not lost. Back to the subject at hand there was a weekend in there that we watched Abby and Lily so Carrie and Matt could paint their living room so there wasn't any railroad work that weekend either. It will probably be a while before I post again, Faye and I are going to vacation in Georgia and we will be preparing for that. I also forgot to mention that over the 4th of July my son in-law Matt and I constructed a playset for Miss Abby for her birthday and it took all of a 3 day weekend, life has been busy which is a good thing. All is not lost thought I have been able to sneak in a little workin on the railroad and I even snapped a couple of pictures to add to my written report, so with out further ado here are the latest pictures of the L&B Railroad.

I refuse.

I refuse is an apt title for what has been going on lately. I was playing golf quite a few weeks ago with my sons-in-law on a little par 3 course in Indianapolis. It was the first tee, as I usually do, I step up to tee off. Since it is my first swing it is a bad one, I dig a big divot, my club twists in my hand, my middle finger on my right hand immediately responds with an intense pain, and begins to swell. A more intelligent person might have called it quits for the day due to the injury. I kept on playing and aggravated the injury further. I had joined the golf league at church which required an up front non-refudable payment. Back to the story, we get back to my daughter's house and the women of my life urge me to seek medical attention which I refuse to do. Monday it is really swollen and painful, this is the day my golf league plays. I call for a substitute early so I can give it a rest. Flash forward, two weeks ago after continuing to play in the golf league the finger is not really improving, I finally seek medical attention. The x-rays show no break so my doctor informs me that I probably damaged the connective tissue in the finger joint. If I had sought attention within 36 hours of the injury it could have been fixed. Since I waited so long there was not much that could be done other than "buddy tape" it to the finger next to it for support. I did that last Monday for the weekly golf round with the league and shot the worst round of my life, it was embarrassing but the finger was none the worse for the experience. yesterday I went to the driving range to try to improve the taped finger swing. I discovered a method for taping that allowed me to swing somewhat naturally and not damage my finger any more than I already had. I will test the results tonight at the league play. Wish me luck I just don't want to embarrass my self again. The railroad has not had a lot of work performed on it due to working outside in the yard and garden and playing golf. I have made and placed some trees and yesterday I built the control station for the transformer and a place to put the switches for the electronic turnouts. I will add some pictures when time allows. That is enough rambling for today so I will wish every one a good day.