Dec 31, 2020
576 sits by the La Crosse roundhouse on an unseasonably warm December day in 1975.
—orc Thu Dec 31 17:37:04 2020
Dec 30, 2020
Mavis gazes out at the increasingly gloomy weather.
—orc Wed Dec 30 16:57:29 2020
Dec 29, 2020
Ex TMER&L M15 hauls a short freight somewhere on the Municipality of East Troy’s interurban line (one of 4 – 5 if you count the Library stub of Pittsburgh Railways’s Charleroi line as still part of an interurban – remaining under wire, even though it’s used primarily as a passenger line these days.)
—orc Tue Dec 29 11:15:08 2020
Dec 28, 2020
This one spent the morning dismantling a smaller bird in the middle of our backyard, and was completely aware of us when we tried to take pictures through 3 layers of glass + screen, but not worried about it because it stuck around through multiple attempts to get pictures.
—orc Mon Dec 28 13:08:17 2020
Dec 26, 2020
578 in Winona (spring 1972)
—orc Sat Dec 26 14:36:17 2020
Dec 25, 2020
Could this be evidence for the One-electron universe? I have not yet detected an anti-Mite particle, but here you can plainly see multiple instances of Dust Mite on the tree, so it’s only a matter of time until the Large Hadron Collider finds one.
“it’s only photoshop!” “Sssh!”
—orc Fri Dec 25 21:26:30 2020
We decorated a tree last night, and I (after the ob-Dust Mite photos) took a picture in the light of the lights.
—orc Fri Dec 25 10:29:33 2020
Dec 24, 2020
576 sits in the Wabasha yard(?) on a cool September day
—orc Thu Dec 24 12:01:09 2020
Dec 21, 2020
578 works the (North La Crosse) yard in mid-June, 1972, just west of the (now vanished) bridge that used to carry the CB&Q’s passenger main into downtown La Crosse. There used to be a little section house just to the left of this photo, but that, as well as almost everything else in this photo, is gone. 578 outlived the CB&Q bridge, outlived the section house, but eventually met the breakers 10 years ago.
—orc Mon Dec 21 15:57:57 2020
I think she’s trying to decide whether to jump into the upper branches.
—orc Mon Dec 21 15:40:25 2020
Dec 19, 2020
579 sits in St. Paul on a sunny May day (1973)
—orc Sat Dec 19 20:21:35 2020
The DIY screen repair guides for the Samsung J7 Pro want you to use a heatgun to warm the case up enough to melt the glue that fastens the screen to the case (and battery.) This has the unfortunate side-effect of warming up the battery, which – at least in this case – objects to the process.
Time to get Russell a new phone!
—orc Sat Dec 19 15:08:45 2020
Dec 18, 2020
Making a nest from bicycle tire patch kits
—orc Fri Dec 18 23:52:25 2020
Adirondack 25 (one of the 3 RSC-2 survivors, and one that was until just a few days ago at risk of being scrapped before a gofundme raised enough money for a downpayment to the movers) is being moved from Utica to home rails @ Remsen NY.
Now I don’t have to frantically buy lottery tickets and hope for a win so I can buy it & move it to a place where it can be rebuilt (… as an rsc2m) and put back into service. Now someone else can, unless I win the lottery and can donate a million dollars (where someone else will still do the rebuilding, but it will be paid for) to the cause.
2020 has been a terrible terrible year, but this is unqualified good news. 25 might still be in danger of scrap, but now – just as with the US government – the danger has been pushed off long enough to catch our breath.
—orc Fri Dec 18 11:37:01 2020
Dec 14, 2020
I walked out of the Big Big Store with 4 bags of groceries, but I was (barely) able to shrink it down to 2 bags + a rotisserie chicken strapped onto the top of it all.
—orc Mon Dec 14 17:46:51 2020
Dec 13, 2020
A 2012 Henry James (out of business) True Temper (ditto) mtb tubeset with dropouts & brazeons, purchased from a framebuilder who’s moved on to other things. This gives me more Henry James parts for a frameset (I already had crowns & a bottom bracket shell, and this gives me front & rear dropouts) so I can use my dwindling stock of TT tubing for a (mainly) fillet brazed 100% (except pencil stays) TT/HJ frameset.
—orc Sun Dec 13 22:56:30 2020
Dec 12, 2020
Mavis is keeping my macbook warm
—orc Sat Dec 12 16:56:10 2020
Dec 11, 2020
Dust Mite astride the world! (or at least astride the Prius’s new battery.)
—orc Fri Dec 11 22:54:55 2020
Dec 10, 2020
I took the longjohn back to the bike shop today, and broke down & loaded up my travel bike so I could get back home without walking or taking the bus. The di2 and light wiring weren’t too happy about being disconnected, but that’s a simple thing to repair (tomorrow, not tonight.)
—orc Thu Dec 10 21:37:48 2020
Dec 09, 2020
A Life-Like Erie-Built (designed 2001) vs an AHM CFA 16-4 (designed 1965); the wheelbase on the CFA is wonky because I’ve plunked a FB chassis under the thing, but aside from that the warts are all original.
—orc Wed Dec 9 21:05:00 2020
Dec 08, 2020
A train, maybe approaching the station in Viroqua, on what I suspect was a really cold and miserable day (I was down in La Crosse those days, so the big difference between the weather up on the ridges and in La Crosse is that it was a bit more humid down by the Mississippi/La Crosse/Black River tangle.) Note that the camera focus leaves something to be desired – trying to focus with mittens on when your breath is fogging up the viewfinder is always an exciting chore, particularly if the train is later than you thought and you’ve started to freeze in your tracks.
(573 in the lead, not more than 2 years from being shipped down to Mount Vernon for scrap; 581, which was wrecked & scrapped in ‘83, brings up the rear.)
—orc Tue Dec 8 19:52:17 2020
The lead units on a fast-moving P&W freight that momentarily blocked my way on the return from Brooklyn Pharmacy last night.
—orc Tue Dec 8 10:21:18 2020
Dec 04, 2020
Dust Mite shares our dinner.
—orc Fri Dec 4 22:50:23 2020
Dec 03, 2020
BN sw-1 #97 (previously CB&Q 9153, then ILSX 1366 after the BN was done with it) which spent a goodly amount of time in La Crosse during the mid-late 1970s. It went on to pastures greener (the Dakotas) after the BN was done with it, and is a grain elevator switcher for Bottineau [ND] Farmers Elevator 79(!) years after being pushed out the door in La Grange.
—orc Thu Dec 3 22:32:53 2020
After several too-late starts, I finally made it to Henry Higgins before they sold out.
(As an aside, the iphone 11’s camera is really nice for something with a sensor that’s about the size of a gnat’s eyeball. Too bad the user interface is about as uncameralike as you can imagine.)
—orc Thu Dec 3 18:56:07 2020
Dec 01, 2020
Putting some more miles on this bakfiets while I fabricate a kickstand base for it.
—orc Tue Dec 1 22:10:23 2020
—30—
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