Subj : More Various Things To : Ky Moffet From : Barry Martin Date : Fri Jul 02 2021 08:21:00 Hi Ky! > > > Plus dailydensen's mastery of the language are mediocre. > > MP> All our message bases are belong to him. > > BM> Darn! I was hoping for massage basses! > > DS> Deep throated guys rubbing your back...or maybe the bearded > > DS> ladies who retired from the circus. :P > > Sometimes one gets what one gets.... > KM> Call in the elephants! > They perform by Zoom too?! KM> They do! They make you zoom away very fast. In the little clown cars?! > > DS> If the wind is blowing right, I can hear the train whistles > > DS> several miles away...and knowing the milepost of the crossings, I > > DS> can tell how far away he is. > KM> Same here, if I'm paying attention. > I just had a flashback to an incident on the news a few years ago: > someone walked into a train! Good news: train was going very slow and > the idiot got by with only minor injuries. KM> Forget if I told this before... KM> Some years back someone did a suicide-by-train (or so they think) KM> right down at my crossing... train operator knew he'd hit someone KM> but they never found the corpse. Some years later when they KM> rebuilt the crossing (about a year before I moved here; as part KM> of turning the highway into a four-lane and moving it from KM> underpass to overpass), they found the remains... apparently had KM> gotten flung a ways and sank in the swampy spot, which was more KM> extensive before all their digging disrupted the spring. I don't recall that but a little quick mental physics: think of the human a a baseball and the train as a bat -- out of the park! > > I don't know that detail but in winter the sound of the train whistles > > travel a greater distance (or seem to); some seem to be heard 'forever', > > blowing their horn at approaching crossings, through the crossing, then > > what seems like a few seconds later warning for the next crossing. > KM> Track is 100 feet from my door and the next crossing about 400 > KM> feet down the way, so I get 'em full blast. And we're a slow zone > KM> (supposed to be 15mph speed limit, tho outbound are often going > KM> faster). > The closeness of the tracks reminds me of the _I Love Lucy_ episode > where Lucy, Ricky, Fred, and Ethel are on their way to Hollywood, stop > at a cabin hotel in the middle of nowhere. As the train goes by the > cabin shakes and bounces, the bed slides from one side of the room to > the other. KM> LOL, that would be fun :D It is a fun episode! KM> It's a Burlington Northern track, and VERY well maintained... KM> they're out here fixing and tamping and replacing every summer. KM> Probably because a couple decades back they had a derail along KM> here, and flying boxcars don't mesh well with nearby houses. So KM> minimizing liability. Those flying boxcars tend to mash rather than mesh. I don't recall too much rail maintenance/repir going on around here -- maybe not needed. Last project I'm aware of was leveling the rails as the crossed a major street. Before: almost seemed like the 'ka-chunk!' was the sound of a car being swallowed. Also had an issue following the last flood a few years back: the railroad had temporarily elevated some tracks to keep the trains above or just wading through the floodwaters. Fine: kept the trains going and no traffic as the roads were under several feet of water. Water recedes, time passes, tracks are still elevated, blocking some of the streets. Eventually resolved: most tracks reduced, I think a few streets now have strange elevations to accomodate. KM> Also most of the cars these days are in good shape, tho once in a KM> while I hear a bad enough squealer or thumper that I call it in KM> to their 24 hour emergency office. The one I could still hear KM> screeching 3 miles away was notable... a really well-maintained KM> train-and-track is actually pretty quiet with almost NO KM> vibration. Have the started answering "Hi Ky!" yet?! Now that you mention it the train sounds I hear I relatively quiet. Do hear a little bit of a rumble but rarely squeals -- subways and busses are the squealers! "Worst" thing is the train whistles, and that varies with my sleep stage: deep sleep I'll not notice, drifting off -- 'woo-woooo' - "aw c'mon....".... KM> Not at all like this 5mph zone, which was still in use in this KM> condition... new owners are slowly replacing it. KM> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Vwt6xX9rM Good Grief! At the beginning there was a shot of the train coming towards the camera: train wiggling back and forth reminded me of trucks on a muddy pot hole-filled road at a construction site! About 4:55 one heck of a 'pothole' -- seemed like a two inch gap between the rails. Did notice the grafitti stopped at about the same level -- rarely used ladders! KM> There's also video of it partially derailing and climbing back KM> onto the track, but didn't find that one offhand. That would be interesting! When one thinks of a derailment cars twisted and overturned, a real mess. KM> It gets worse (mostly somewhat sped up) KM> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2fq575szuk Hmmm: that intialfreeze-framed picture when the system is waiting to click to start looks intimidating! About 2:00 appears the engineer opens the door and looks back to make sure the rest of the train is still attached! Quite a few of the shots apears the camera is a little too close for my comfort -- sure, telephoto lens and all that, but some seem like the camera is one the tracks with the train coming towards it or just a few feet from the track: timmmberrrrr! Squish! KM> Bad tracks AND snowplow fun! KM> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtBUvGO1g0g I remember reading about that Thailand one: goes right though a market and vendors and people move out of the way, then back to the market! > KM> But I love trains, so I don't care. :D > I'll admit to being part of the take 'em or leave 'em group, but do > admire the design, strength, sometimes the grafitti. Never had the > opportunity to get acquainted. KM> They're even more interesting when you have a trackside view. And KM> yes, some of the graffiti is quite impressive artwork. Policy KM> seems to be to leave it alone so long as it doesn't cover any of KM> the safety or capacity markings. Also, if there's already nice KM> artwork, the gangs usually don't tag 'em. Here they have put artwork on some of the retaining walls and buildings to keep them from getting grafittied (is that the verb?), So far seems to be working -- pretty sure it goes elsewhere. In Vienna (Austria) there is a relatively lot of graffiti, which surprised me. There are several areas where graffiti is allowed/ encouraged -- some of it is quite good: detailed, proportioned. Remember one of Michael Jackson which looked closer to a portrait. > > Unfortunately Davenport (next city over) has a lot of shooting and > > shots-fired incidents. "Good news" is the general area where occurring > > is about six or seven miles from the house. > KM> Now that we don't get around here, not least because the > KM> neighborhood would shoot back, with better aim. > That's what's needed: consequences! By the news reports it > seems like a lot of guns are out there but seems all by the criminals. > (The rest of us are protected by little stickers we got at the dollar > store: "Warning! These premises are protected by a false sense of > security!") KM> Pretty much, if you're in a blue state. Here the sticker points KM> the other way around. Iowa just passed some sort of no registration needed for firearms effective July 1 (yesterday as I write this). I'll admit to not getting the details but apparently if the customer passes the gun dealer's background check then can get a gun. Police are recommending it be registered, partially to comply with other states' laws when travelling. > KM> [We have a stand-your-ground law that extends to protecting other > KM> persons and property.] > I'm not sure what Iowa has. I do like the concept of not only being > able to protect one's own person and property but neighbours': neighbour > isn't home, I see someone break in, call 911 and then (if reasonably KM> Yep. You want a safe neighborhood, it helps if everyone can KM> contribute. Stepping back a bit to a wider view, I've thought it a bit silly to have smoke detectors, CO detectors, etc., only audible in the house. Sure, alerts if someone is home but if nobody home not heard. If connected to an outside alarm then at least a chance a neighbour or someone passing by would hear and maybe request the Police/Fire Department. OTOH might get ignored like car alarms. > safe) detain. ...Might have to order delivery: Davenport police are > sometimes very slow to respond to low-level reports. At least here in > Bettendorf they're generally near-instant response. KM> Correct police behavior would be to provide a department and KM> public phone number, which answers thus: KM> "Corpse Pickup, where may I direct your meatwagon?" As long as the other end of the trip isn't at Tyson in Joslin (IL)! (The joke is it's a meat processing plant.) ¯ BarryMartin3@ ® ¯ @MyMetronet.NET ® .... Oven: Compact home incinerator for disposing pieces of meat and poultry. --- MultiMail/Win32 v0.47 þ wcECHO 4.2 ÷ ILink: The Safe BBS þ Bettendorf, IA --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com | 856-933-7096 (454:1/1) .