Self Esteem Boost For This Blog!

There was a list on msn.com about the 11 lames blogs out there, and mine wasn't on the list! Woo Hoo!!!!! I better get a better track plan up before they come around and do this list again!

Lamest Blogs

Track Plan

I finally got a track plan scanned into the computer! Click on it to get the supersized view.
Apparently the scanner picked up some more stuff than I thought though. (smudge marks, etc.)

It also has some of my preliminary town names...

Model Railroad Plan 2

I've let the track plan simmer for a couple of weeks here to see if I still like it, and so far so good. The other thought that I had simmering was where the layout should be based. I knew it would be somewhere here in the midwest to ease construction. I know the area is not exactly plywood flat, but with a few creative cuts in the foam here and a few small hill's there, I could create the illusion of rolling terrain without having to try and make actual hills for the trains to go up and over.

I also know that I would like to have my main line be for the CB&Q and or BN/BNSF. I also wanted to interchange with the Chicago Northwestern/descendants and the Santa Fe. I would also like a short line interchange.

My candidates for locations are as follows:

Saginaw Texas
Galesburg IL
Minneapolis to Omaha line

I'll go over the pros and cons on following posts. Stay Tuned!!

Diet Adjustment 3

The best of plans rarely surivive the first contact with the enemy...

This has been my week so far. I had been doing pretty good on avoiding snacks, until Monday when someone at work dug out their Girl Scout Cookies from the freeze and strategically placed them in the lunchroom. The ones with the lemon goo on the inside are really tasty. That shot that day to hell. Then yesterday, I ended up having Chinese for dinner, scratch that day.

Today went a lot better, no snacks, no out of the blue high calorie meals....

I also started on my secret project against the chub... stay tuned

Diet Adjustment 2

So I've been at the adjusted diet here for a couple of weeks, and very slowly it's working. Cutting out the snacks was the key, and now I'm down about 3 lbs.

I managed to dodge most of the Halloween candy around the office last week. The challenge this week was choclate cookies w/ melted Andes Candies on top at work. Luckily they were basically under lock and key, so I only had two. Today we had a trip to Cuver's with Bobi's mom and niece. I was still on track there, until I had the "Minneosta Wild Sundae", with choclate ice cream, hot fudge, and brownie chunks. Mmmm, surgar overload. Well, there's always tomorrow.

Model Railroad Plan

I've always had a soft spot for model trains ever since I was a little kid. Me and my brothers had a 4'x8' layout that our dad bought for us to run our trains on.

The ravages of time, and a move led to the scrapping of this plywood wonder. Over the last several years, I've collected various engines, cars, and building kits for a future layout.

I built a 2'x8' module after college, but it didn't get much past the "Styrofoam
Central" stage. I've come up with some plans over the years, I think I was trying to bite off to
much with these, both in size and complexity.

A couple of years ago, I came across a plan for a better beginners layout. Not quite wanting to admit that I was a beginner, I placed this one in the proverbial mental file cabinet. I continued to bash my head against the wall trying to come up with a plan that I could manage.

A few months ago, I was digging in my Yahoo Groups account, and found the group for this layouts plan. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HOGRR/ The original plan is called the "Heart of Georgia", after a real short line in Georgia. This layout is 8'x9' open pit design. It has a couple of passing tracks, a small yard, and several industries and interchanges. It could very easily be operated by one person when the desire for a quicky operating session arises. The layout shelf is also only 1' wide all the way around, so it's fairly easy on the materials.

For my 12'x12' room, I took this plan and scaled it up to 9'x12', keeping the basic elements, but slightly re arranging them. I also added a track to the yard, and also left open the posibility of an expansion branch line.

I'm hopinng to start construction later this month, once I get my back yard cleaned up, and a design for the benchwork solidified. Stay tuned....

Diet adjustment

So my former plan of eating everything to slow or stupid to get out of my way isn't working out to well.... 210 lbs isn't my idea of a good time.
This called for a return to my old diet plan of counting calories. I'm on day three, and because of this, in theory, I can lose weight, even after eating Taco Bell and enjoying a Sam Adams Cherry Wheat! All I had to to do was dial back the snacks, candy, and soda I normally consume at a rate simillar to a Black Hole sucking matter into it's super massive core. Cool, eh?

Now all I have to do is start the exercise thing back up. Now where did I put my beer?

Rail fan trip 10/18/08

Sometimes impromptu trips are the best!

I was supposed to help Bobi clean the house yesterday, but we got a late start to the day. While in bed, I heard my phone buzz somewhere in the bedroom. Finally, I dug it out and saw that Jeff had called about 10 times since Friday night. I thought that him and Nolan made it up to Michigan for their MEA weekend railfanning trip.

When I called him, he said that they were in Red Wing on their way up to the cities. I hemmed and hawed for a while, but finally I said yes. I could see that Bobi was just heart broken that we wouldn't spend the day cleaning the house. In fact, she even had a sly grin on her face as she fired up Donkey Kong.

I headed out, and saw a set of CP/Soo engines sitting on the bridge over 694, right by Cardigan Junction. I pulled off of rice street, and went on to the frontage road, appropriately called Soo Street. I got off a couple of nice pictures of the engines. I would post them, but I have not a clue where my card reader is.. D'oH

I'll have to finish this later when I can post pictures as well!

Set the Geek - O - Meter to stun!

I think I've pegged the Geek - O - Meter tonight! On a Friday of all nights to!

It started slow, surfing the web, admiring the train picture I uploaded to the Atlas Model Railroad forum. After poking around other news sites, and miscellaneous forums, I cleaned the kitchen.

AFter that, I surfed through the tv, and with nothing on, started a game of Donkey King Country on the Wii. While I was doing that, Bobi called and suggested a pizza for dinner. I left for Cub foods, and that is when the real geekiness started.

For laughs and giggles, I swung by Barnes and Nobles to see if there were any interesting magazines in stock. It was there I found one of the highlights of the evening so far, a new copy of Sky and Telescope's Skywatch 2009!!!! It's like a TV Guide for stargazing. I had to act fast, it's only supposed to be on the stands until 1/5/09! Although, there wasn't much of a crowd waiting to get their copy.

After stopping at cub to get a pizza, and some caffeine free Coca Cola ( being a true geek, I get nasty headaches from straight coke) I got home and turned the TV back on. I turned on the guide, and in a stroke of luck, in about 15 minutes, there's a show on PBS about railroad Dome cars!

Well, gotta go, don's want to miss the Dome car show!

Oh, and to max out the geek factor, I'm hard at work blogging about it! Geek on!

Pre Diet Buffet

Our vacation wrapped up today with a trip to one of our favorite events, a buffet! We had a few hours to kill from when we left the campground until we could pick up the schnauzers.

Our first step was to watch Kelly, Jim, and Ryan work on their house. It was fun watch another guy get yelled at with out it being me! Finally, they finished up their work and we were off to the Brunch Buffet at Grand Casino Hinckley.

Having Eggbert with, we pulled into the oversized vehicle lot at the Casino, and parked next to a 30' + motorhome. What better opportunity to get the cliche little Scamp camper next to the camping behemoth? We got the pictures and were heading to the food when the owners of the motorhome popped out their door! Luckily they were pretty good natured about being the prop in our photo.

We had a few minutes before Jim, Kelly, Ryan, Becca, and Papa Holland showed up. Bobi dropped a few coins in the slot machines and came back with an extra dollar or two. I put a dollar into one right by the Buffet, and won $10!!! this helped to pay for our meal, so that was cool.

The casino had a distinct odor to it. Being part of a sovereign nation, they are exempt from some of the more burdensome rules of Minnesota's oppresive nanny state, primarily the smoking ban. The place was full of seniors working their best at funding the casino, and depleting the nations tobacco stockpiles. Normally the smell of ciggies is kind of gross, but the the smell of over burdensome government is worse.

Finally the rest of our party showed up, and we went to work on the buffet. I had to make a good effort at this, because starting tomorrow or Tuesday, I have to seriously get back on the wagon of not eating everything in sight... But not today. I hit several major food groups, including turkey, stuffing, ham, eggrolls, chocolate milk, and more! I ate so much, I literally felt like I was going to burst. No good.

After our engorgement, we still had some time to kill. Ryan took off on his own to play some blackjack, and the rest of us went to the arcade with Becca. In the end, we all had more fun playing the Deal or No Deal ticket game in the arcade than we did with the slot and video poker machines in the casino.

Soon though, it came time to head for home. We picked up the schnauzers at the kennels. I have never seen two dogs squirm, squiggle, and squeak like these two. And with that, our vacation is over... D'oh..

North Shore Scenic Railroad trip!

Today we were in Duluth, and one of our stops was to take a ride on the North Shore Scenic Railroad.

The train left the Duluth Depot at 12:30. We got there at 11:00, so we had plenty of time to check out the train museum in the depot. I have to say, it is one of the better train museums out there. The collection has a lot of ties to the Duluth/Superior area railroads. My new favorite in there is the DM&IR observation car. It was a business car for the railroad, and was, well, pimped. Lots of nice wood furniture, fine china, and other treasures.

Around 12:00, the train pulled up to the depot. Today's power was a restored Soo Line GP30. As a bonus, as it pulled by getting the train ready, one of the access doors was open, so you could get a look at the prime mover. The train we took went from the Depot in downtown Duluth, to the the Lester River bridge in east Duluth.



We started out in an old Great Northern coach, that still had the original interior which is cool. The slight smell in the coach was not so cool. It kind of reminded me of Emma the Schnauzer and one of her less pleasant hobbies. When we got to the end of the line, we headed out to the open air car, which was very cool, in more ways than one! From there, we got an up close view of the engine as it cut off to run around the train for the return trip.

















SOO 700 shows off it's intimates before our train left

















SOO 700 running around the train to take us back to Duluth. You can see some excess air being blown out.


After we got back, we had heard rumors that the steam special, using the Soo Line 2719 would be rolling down the line. We waited for an hour and a half after it's scheduled departure from Two Harbors. Alas it never showed. We then packed up and headed back to camp for steaks and a fairly nice campfire.

Camping in Carlton

Yesterday me and Bobi rolled into the KOA here in Carlton MN. We only circled the town of 1000 a few times before stumbling upon the campground. I had been here once before, and remembered that the campground is along the train tracks.

However, since there are tracks coming into the city from multiple directions, this did not make the process any easier.

We got settled in, and got to try out the new camp stove, very nice. We had our camp fire going for a little bit when we saw the first lightning in the sky. Thunderstorms were in the forecast, so we didn't get to worried until the tornado siren went off. Apparently though, around here they turn the siren to alert the volunteer fire department as well. Not wanting to tempt fate, we let the fire burn down to the coals, loaded the chairs in the car, and took shelter in Eggbert.

Good thing He's waterproof, cause it rained like a monster last night, complete with thunder, lightning, and wind. Eggbert held fast though, with nary a leak. The sound of the rain on his fiberglass shell is very relaxing, and soothed me and Bobi both to sleep.

Fall camping trip 08

This post is coming straight from inside Eggbert the camper, which is currently sitting in site #2 of the Smokey Bear campground in Gatlinburg TN, We met Tony and Malinda down here after a Lot of driving.

We left St Paul yesterday at noon, and arrived in Illinois at a KOA around 7:30 p.m. We had our first lookie loo at Eggbert yesterday (yes, I know, I need to do a post on Eggbert, the little bugger is growing on me!) We fell asleep by 9, and had to get up at 5:30 a.m. I did't sleep so hot because Eggbert was still hitched to the car, and had a pronounced nose down attitude. Long story short, I felt like I was going to roll out of bed!

We hit the highway by 6 a.m. and drove like mad through Illinois (What's up with the 55mph speed limit for trailers anyway?) We ended up driving that part like any good Minnesotan would. Right before Indiana, I saw my first two CSX locomotives in their native, I think, enviornments.

We drove like mad through Indiana, ignoring low gas lights and slow drivers. We crossed into Kentucky at Louisville. There are a lot of neat bridges going over the Ohio river there. The one we crossed on on I 64 had the west bound traffic on the top deck, and the east bound traffic on the lower deck. We saw lots of horses, and Indiana plates that said "In God We Trust".

In Lexington, we saw our first FSU Chick Fil A. Bobi did some pretty neat manuevers to get us there, including a U turn that could I thought could only be done in a car, not with a trailer. Eggbert is very tolerant about trailing along behind the car. After some trick parking, we filled up on Chick Fil A.

Then we drove like mad some more. We drove so fast that we even beat the tour bus load of old people into the bathrooms at the truck stop.

After a fun trip on I-40, we cut onto a little road to get us to Gatlinburg. It was even complete with Hilly Billy's. Iwas driving, so I did not get a good look at the alledged Hill Billy's, but Bobi assured me that they were missing sufficent number of teeth to qualify.

Once we got the the campground, we got Eggbert tucked away in his spot. I cooked dinner, while Tony tried to get the greenest wood in East Tennessee to light for our campfire. It only took him about two hours to get the fire going, but once it did, it went like a champ.

Alas, it is now time for me to call it a night, so farewell gentle readers, and stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Spot o Railfanning

I went to check out the Minnesota Commercial yard by the Amtrak depot tonight. The access is a bridge over the east end of the yard, making it a morning/early afternoon spot.

Did catch two tank cars that were older than dirt though...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28307491@N02/sets/72157606819612610/


Kinda disappointing night out, but better than watching TV, and yes Bobi, I do know where the remote is!

Perseids!

I'm a little tired and sore today, having gotten up at 3:00 this morning to try and catch a glimpse of the Perseid meteor shower.

The shower normally peaks on the morning of the 12th, but the local weather mutants are forecasting clouds and rain for the 12th. Fortunately the shower is visible, but at lower meteor counts for a few nights either side of the peak.

I set my alarm for 2:45 this morning, and it scared me silly when it went off. I wiggled out from between Bobi and two schnauzers. I put my jeans and sweatshirt on, grabbed a blanket and headed our for the backyard. I went to the far southwest corner of the yard, to get as far away from the maple trees blocking the good view to the northeast. If I had been smart, I would have dragged out the lounge chair, but digging in the garage at that hour would probably have raised the dead.

As it was, I lasted about 1/2 and hour on the blanket on the ground, staring towards the northeast, where the meteors would be coming from. I only saw three, which was a spot disapointing. But considering that the trees blocked half the eastern sky, it was to be expected. At least I saw something. It was kind of neat sitting in one spot, you see the stars very slowly climbing higher in the sky by each passing minute.

After getting tired of sitting on the ground, I checked out my clear view of the east, along with all the neighbors lights. I saw Auriga and the Pleideas rising in the east, then realizing it was almost 4, went back in to get a few more hours sleep before having to get up for the work in the morning.

Articulated Steam

A few weekends ago, Bobi saw a segment on the channel 5 news about the Twin Cities Model Railroad museum at Bandanna Square in St Paul. We were going to make a trip over there on Saturday, but when I checked their website, it said that they were having Articulated Steam day! Woo Hoo!!!!!
It was well worth the $4 each to see DM&IR Yellowstones, NP Challengers, UP Bigboys, and other assorted articulateds rolling around a mockup of the Twin Cities, and Mississippi river in 1:48 scale. Being used to seeing HO scale trains, these things are frapping huge! The Bigboy appeared to be over two feet long, not including the tender. I had a feeling that it probably weighed as much as my Buick, well, maybe not the Buick but as much as a mini schnauzer would be a good guess. Quite a few of them had sound as well, so you got pretty much all the senses tickled save for smell.

Another plus is that the layout is very detailed, not plywood pacific action here. It's definetly gotten some ideas cooking in my head for later this winter when Model Railroading season kicks in!

Decaf Iced Coffee

Bobi Rocks! I was bemoaning the fact that McDonalds does not have decaf iced coffee. In moment of insipration, she went over to the kitchen and dug out a can of International Coffees Decaf French Vanilla, mixed it up with some cold water and milk, and viola, a Decaf Iced Coffee!

She poured it over some ice in a glass, and declared it to be pretty spot on as far as tasting like the stuff you get at the Golden Arches. She is so cool!

It was proably also a lot cheaper doing it this way than to get the real thing. The downside is that I can see this being very addictive, even without the caffeine. Just what I need, another surgar fix. Especially considering that I weigh as much now as I did at the beginning of the year when I planned to drop about 40-45 lbs! D'oh

In the nick of time

I ran out of propane for the grill just in the nick of time today.

We started the grill with intention of cooking up some chicken thighs. While I was lighting the grill, a loud siren went off. I went inside and saw that there was a tornado warning for the northern part of Anoka county, with us and the grill being in southern Anoka county. There was also another large storm cell coming straight for us.

I told Bobi that we had to get the chicken on the grill before the storm came in. She was out there before I was and gave me a weird look, and then asked if I lit the grill. I said yes, but the grill was still only slightly warm to the touch. We had run out of propane.

I think that this was God's way of saying "Hey, don't be grilling in a storm!" Bobi cooked them up in the fry pan, and sure enough, when they were done the heavens opened up!

Summon the Thunder III

So the storm is going through, lots of cool lightning and thunder, but here in Spring Lake Park, not much else.....

Big Boomer just rattled the house.

The sky has this really cool yellowish look to it now that storm is going through. Wall to Wall coverage on channel 11.


Maybe there'll be a cool rainbow tonight.....

It's after sunset, so no rainbow for you!

Summon the Thunder II

Belinda and Sven are tag teaming the weather coverage on Channel 11.....

These are moving really slow......



At least I don't have to water the plants tonight.....

Summon the Thunder......

Every one know that when you get new goodies for your telescope, or start working on it, it means that rain is sure to be on the way.

I got the idea to get my tripod set back up, and to work on the rotating rings for my bigger scope tonight. Doing so, I think that I have summoned the thunder!!!

There is a large blob of thunderstorms to the west of us.....

We're the big bullseye north of the word "Minneapolis"
The storms probably have more to do with the 90 degree temps, 70+ degree dew points and a strong cold front making it's way across the state.

But the idea that playing with the telescope has SUMMONED THE THUNDER!!! sounds cooler

Happy 4th of July

Today was a wonderfull 4th of July!

The weather was nice, and right before dark me and Bobi fired up the Vue and headed up to the Egret Blvd bridge over Highway 10 to see the fireworks at the Coon Rapids Carnival in the Park. When we saw some old people walking up to the bridge, we knew we were in the right place. When you see old peeps, you can't go wrong. There were a few other people parked up there as well. We had a pretty good view of the show, to. Plus there were lots of local people firing off there stash of quality Wisconsin unsafe and insane fireworks. No wussy fountains for these folks.

There was even a little backyard astronomy to be had tonight. Low in the west sky was a nice little sliver of a crescent moon, with the new moon being back on the 3rd. Tomorrow night should have a nice crescent with some earthshine...

My life flashed before my eyes...

I installed Photoshop Elements 6 on my machine, and ran the organizer on all my photos. It looked like my life was flashing before my eyes, but it was just the part that was stored as JPG's on my HD.

Now I get to tag all those bad boys.....

A Plauge of Helicopters

The house has been inundated by helicopters. Not TV helicopters, not Black Helicopters, but Maple Tree Helicopters.

Our maple tree in the back yard has been busy growing it's little helicopter fruit or seeds for the last month or so, and today was release day. There's been strong wind today, and these things have now been spread to every corner of creation, or at least every corner of creation with 100' of the tree. They are in the grass, going gangbusters in the gutter, and slathered all over the driveway and front steps.

They also have a knack for avoiding a neat clean disposal. I worked on sweeping them up off the steps and sidewalk, and while most went without question, there were quite a few that held on to any part of the pavement they could. I wound up sweeping up about 5 or 6 pounds of these buggers, but the broom could only get so many. The leaf sucker and blower may have to be pulled out of mothballs to finish this job, but not tonight.

Coon Rapids Tornado 2008

We almost got sucked up into a tornado today whilst shopping at Costco in Coon Rapids!

After spending a pleasant afternoon of stimulating the economy, we ready to head home to admire our spoils. Around 4:30 p.m., we had finished checking out at Costco and were heading for the doors. There were several people ahead of us in the line
where they check your receipt against your cart of stuff. We saw that the clouds were getting really dark, and Bobi said look at the wind.

At this point, several Costco minions hauled butt for the front doors. The chatter on the radios was that they could not get the outside outside doors closed because of the wind. We then heard on one radio that there was a tornado over Menard's, which was just to the east of Costco.

We then saw the big metal shutter over the inside of the front door being pulled down, and the cart/receipt checker people starting to shoosh us further into the store. On the radios there were many calls to get the people to the middle of the store. We ended up standing next to a big rack of merchandise, when one of their people said to get away from there. At this point, we ditched the cart and headed further into the store.

At this point, we saw people camping out under the heavy metal tables in the clothing dept. We found an open space under a table of khaki pants. We crawled under that, and then heard assorted banging and crashing sounds from the roof. We stayed there for a few minutes as the storm passed over head. After a couple more minutes, we saw something sort of strange. Two employees went running towards the front of the store pushing a cart full of cookies! WTF? We've been evacuated to under a table of khaki pants and these people are making a run for it with loads of cookies? It seemed sort of surreal at that point.

Right after that, the all clear went out over the radios and we made out way out from under the table. Our adventure wasn't quite over yet!

This was a two part storm, with another section about 10 minutes behind the first. We got out the car and loaded the stuff and as we started out, heard stories on the radio of cars over turned on Highway 10, If we had left Costco 5 minutes earlier, that could of been us. We took the back roads home, with a large nasty looking cloud in hot pursuit!

We had enough time to grab the computer, weather radio, chuck the steaks in the fridge (priorities man, priorities.) and run for the basement. It was kind of anti climactic after that. The TV said there was a tornado warning for our part of the county, but we just heard a lot of rain, and a couple of booms of thunder.

I got a couple of neat picks of the storms after they were to the east of us. I also talked a little to Scott, our next door neighbor. While we were under the khaki pants table in Costco, he was out on the front step watching the tornado mosey on past to the north of Spring Lake Park. There wasn't any damage here, but it sounds like some houses in Hugo MN were damaged, no word of injuries.


After the storm

Sweet!!!

So I finally got the ST80 outside and was able to use it!

Since the ST80 has a short focal length, Chromatic Aberation is gonna be an issue. i looked at the moon, and it was nice and clear, with just the slightest bit of purple fringe around the edge. For me, it was not an issue, and even looked kind of cool. I am sure that refractor purists are having kittens at this point, but such is life. There is one accessory that comes with the scope that takes care of this issue.

The lens cover has a 40mm hole in that when uncovered, effectively increases the focal length of the scope and makes the CA go away. The trade off is reduced resolution.

My other targets were Saturn, which is showing the rings getting flatter and flatter until they go edge on in 2009.

The last stop was the double star Castor, in Gemini. The scope was able to split it at roughly 133x. The two components were both bright white. Pretty cool

Here's to clear and dark sky's at Eagle Cliff campground next week!

A duck has to quack, a crocheter has to crochet...

A nerd with a telescope and a clear warm night has to get outside!

It's been one heck of a nice night here tonight. I've been able to bike to the library, clean out my portable grills for camping, and low and behold, I could take the scope out!

This is about my 4th try at using the ST80. Other trips out have been foiled by crummy weather, wussy tripods, and other misfortune. I think the stars are aligning tonight, no pun intended.

Using the adapter plate for the Astroview mount, I have a steady ride for the scope. No dropping down or up to weird angles, no shifted images when moving the scope, and not as many wiggles as a camera tripod. I also dragged out the Denver chair that me an m brother spent the better part of 2007 making.

The moon is getting close to full, so I am not expecting to many faint fuzzies, but like they say, when the moon is out, observe the moon. I am also going to shoot for Saturn, and the beehive cluster.

This means that I am going to be busy as all get out getting stuff together for the camping trip. I know that Bobi has the yarn ready at least!




The scope on the Astroview mount... the rain gauge is keeping it company

The business end of the scope!

The Tent, Part 2

Welcome back!

If you're following along with your printed instructions for the Big Agnes Big House 4, we're at step 8

Unfold the rain fly and place it over the top of the tent. Again, the yellow buckles and straps represent the front of the rain fly. At this point, the urge to ignore the instructions kicks in for some reason. I ended up buckling all the buckles, and the then tried to set up the last two poles that give the fly it's shape and support over the doors.

Here's the correct sequence:

1) Make sure the yellow buckles are on the front.
2) Attach the two buckles in the middle of each side of the tent.
3) Then starting on the front, insert the larger pole in the sleeve in the front of the fly. clip the strap to pole running from the middle of the tent.
4) Insert the pole end into the grommet in the strap. Repeat for the other side. See the picture below for detailed view of the Rain Fly Support pole, the strap, and how it clips to the pole.

Repeat this with the pole for the other end of the rain fly.


.





There is also a Velcro strap on the Rainfly that wraps around the tent pole.






At this point the tent is almost ready for use If I were really camping, I would stake it down. It looks like you can attach Guy Lines to the rings on the rain fly, and there are additional grommets on the tent strap to stake it into the ground.

After this, I tried too set up the Vestibule. The process is similar to that for the tent. You run a pole through a sleeve on the vestibule, and bend it to fit into grommets on both sides of the front. This is where I ran into trouble.

I could not get the the pole to reach both grommets. Either the pole was to long, or there was not enough space between the straps for the pole to reach. Maybe this was done by the guy that lost his spoon. He was probably off kilter after the missus gave him the who what where when why for losing the spoon...


Overall, I think that we're going to like this tent. It took me about 45 minutes to get it together the first time, but that also included some time taking pictures, reading instructions, scratching my head, re-reading instructions and fixing things that I goofed up.

Aside from the vestibule, the fit and finish seems to be pretty good. The zippers were nice and smooth, and all the straps on tent, rain fly, and foot print line up perfectly.

On the inside, there is a lot of room, but then again this is the BIG House! I'm roughly 5'11", and I could stand straight up inside. There are also three mesh pockets on each side of the tent.

On the doors, you can unzip the inner part of the door from the top to reveal the bug proof mesh, allowing for more ventilation. You can do this on both doors and get a pretty nice cross breeze going in thee. There is also a small skylight, which is a clear portion in the rain fly.

So now I am really jonesing to go camping now and get out under the stars!

The Tent!

The time for our camping trip is drawing nigh.

Tonight I did a test set up of the tent, to make sure that everything was there, and in working order.

We got a Big Agnes Big House 4 tent, with the matching gear loft, foot print, and vestibule.




Here is all the stuff laid out on the table. From left to right we have the foot print (Orange sack), the gear loft, the vestibule in the yellow sack, and the tent.




Here's the footprint laid out. The two yellow straps on the left are the front of the footprint. These will match up with the yellow straps on the tent.




Starting to unfold the tent.




When I unfolded the other side of the tent, I found a spoon. Some poor joe in China is probably looking for that, and probably got a good talking to from the missus when he got home without the spoon. I can empathize with him.




The tent is fully unfolded. As promised, the yellow straps on the front of the tent match up with the yellow straps on the footprint.



There are five poles holding this thing up. The silver ones unfold to be about 15 feet long or so. Be careful if you are setting this up around power lines...



The tent becomes free standing with just two poles. The ends of the poles are inserted into gromets on the corners of the tent straps. There are two grommets in the strap, I think the inner grommet is for the pole, and the outer grommet is used to stake the tent to the ground.



The third long pole starts in a grommet in the middle of one side, and reaches over to a grommet in the middle of the other side. Again the power line warning applies, as the pole is sticking about 12 feet off the ground. The power lines you see in the picture are about 40 feet behind the tent.



After you get the third pole in place, attach the plastic clips on the tent to the pole. This is what gives you the interior space. This tent even comes with a welcome mat!

Ok, it's up. Now let's make it weather proof!

Beer Butt Chicken ---- Part 2

It was a lot easier to get the chicken off the grill than I thought it would be. I took the tongs, and put them under each leg, and lifted it into the casserole dish. I used the same technique to extricate the beer and holder and move the chicken to the plate.

I think that I put a little to much rub on part of this one, it's a little to crispy and black :( But underneath..........mmmmmmmm, chickeny goodnes! All the meat is nice and juicy. I had some of the skin form the other side that was not overdone, and it was scrumptious.

For next time, I'll turn the heat down a bit. It seemed to cook a little faster than I thought it would. I'll also make sure to rotate it so the skin cooks a little more evenly.

Beer Butt Chicken ---- Part 1

April 19th, a day that will live on in grilling infamy. I am trying my first Beer Butt Chicken today!

Basically, its a chicken that is grilled vertically, with a half full can of beer inserted in it's rear cavity. The beer is supposed to help keep the chicken nice and moist on the inside and make the skin crispy. Whether this happens with my chicken, designated Chicken X-1 (for experimental chicken #1) remains to be seen.

The ingredients are pretty simple
* Beer in a can. I used regular Leinenkugels
* A whole chicken
* Poultry rub. I used Famous Dave's, as that's what was around the house.

To prepare the bird,

1) make sure there is vertical clearance in your grill for the chicken.
2)Set your grill up for indirect cooking. My grill is gas, so I turned one burner on.
3) Open the beer and drink 1/2 of it while congratulating yourself for having the forethought to make this dish
4) Using a can opener punch some additional holes in the beer can. Add some of the rub to the beer.
5) Rinse the chicken inside and out with cold water. Remove the neck, giblets, and any fat at either opening
6) Cover the chicken inside and out with the rub.
7) At the grill, place the can of beer up the back end of the chicken, and place over the burner that is not running. I bought a chicken/can holder at Home Depot for abou $4 or so. This provides a base with legs to put the can in. Then this goes in the chicken, and makes it much more stable.
8)It should cook for anywhere from 1-2 hours. I'm planning on checking mine at about an hour and a half. The temp in the thigh should be more than 180.

Stay Tuned

Hitchin a ride - Telescope style

My new to me Orion ST80-a finally has a mount to ride on. I've had this things for two monnths, so it's been itchin to get out of it's case.

Orion shipped the scope with the mounting rings bolted onto a small dovetail plate. This works slicker than bug s$$# if your tripod/mount has a dovetail receprtor. Unfortunately, my original scope, an Orion Astroview 6, does not have this receptor. I called Orion to see if there was a way to attach theST80 to this mount. They said no.

There are some on the net that sell an adaptor that would do the trick, but they also cost $100+, so that was not going to be happening anytime soon.

There is a plan B though.... In the middle of the dovetail for the ST80, there's a threaded hole than can be used to attach the dovetail to a photo tripod with a 1/4*20 bolt .So what if I could attach a bolt like that the Astroview mount?

The plan I came up with was this, an adapter plate made of 1*2 piece of wood, with two bolts holding it to the head of the mount, and a 1/4*20 bolt sticking out of the middle attach the dovetail plate. My brother helped me with the fabrication (Thanks Tony!)

Since the mount is of a Japaneese design, the measurements are metric.

We cut the wood to length of 18cm. We then drilled the holes for mouting the adapter plate to the mount head. The first hole was 1.5 cm fron the end of the adapter. The second hole was drilled 15 cm from the first hole. The hole for the dovetail plate mounting bolt was drilled in the middle. The head of the mount has two braces for the stock tube rings. The space between these is slightly narrower than the width of the adaptor plate. We ended up take a router to one side to knock down the corners. This helped the adapter fit flat against the mount head.

It looks pretty good, once it is all together. I'm planning on painting the adapter and mounting hardware flat black, to reduce stray light, and make the adapter a little more moisture resistant.




The finished prooduct

Out of hibernation

So the sun is getting higher, and the temps warmer, I should drag my carcass out of hibernation. I really haven't done much of anything the last couple of months. Thus, the lack of posts to the blog here. The sad part, is that there's no real reason for that. It's been many quality nights after work watching TV and day dreaming of warmer weather and not sitting around watching TV.

But now it's getting warmer, so I've gotten some ideas for warm weather stuff like:

• Clean the garage
• Play with my scope ( Been to cold, cloudy, snowy to observe plus potential dog mines to dodge in the backyard)
• railfanning and duck-fanning (similar to railfanning but with ducks, geese,a nd other waterfowl)
• Keep the front yard from being the worst in the neighborhood
• Camping with Mrs. Route! This one is going to happen!
• Prep the train room for a layout ( for the really hot humid yukky days this summer)
• Grilling!
• Other outdoor activities to be determined
• So how much will I really do? Stay tuned!
  

DISCLAIMER: Just cause I have ideas to do this stuff, doesn't necessarily mean that I'd actually do it or get around to doing it.

All the Small Things

I had the urge to work on my trains again tonight, but I needed a project that I could do upstairs. I started to look at my Athearn 200 ton crane kit, but I saw that some of the parts appeared to have been chewed on (probably by Teddy the Poodle from when I lived in my mom's basement years ago) ok, scratch that one for now.

I then moved onto number boards for 6773, but I found that I am missing one of the number board inserts. I taped one on to see how it looks, but I am not a big fan of the font. I have a good font on my computer at home, but my printer does not print black dark enough, and my work computer that can print dark enough does not have the right font.

Then the A Hah moment. I remembered that I had the plastic handrails for this unit, so I grabbed the xacto knife, and an old paperback book to use as the cutting surface (Sorry Mr. Flynn) and wet to town. So far I have the front end done, and I hope to finish the rest tomorrow. I also have to make a call to Athearn for some new number board inserts and crane parts,

Mars tonight

I saw the sky was clear tonight when I took the dogs out and decided to set the scope up to get a peek at Mars. It is colder than a Witch's *%$# out there at three degrees with a -15 windchill.

It was a good idea, truly it was. I think that I lasted all of then minutes out there. Not one of my better runs out there. I think I'll wait another 10 years or so for the next good opposition. Who cares if it's way low in the sky? At least the temps will be a little more temperate :)