Patently Speaking
ealdthryth wasn't feeling too good last night, so I went to the railroad club meeting by myself. The program was pretty good--it was all about railroad patents filed by people with the same last names as the club members. Only one was actually related, and one might have been. It was pretty amusing because a number of patents filed were not actually usable--which makes one wonder why they received patents in the first place.
After the meeting, I got some insight to the modified plans being thought up about the layout's evolving configuration. The latest discussion is about having another show loop that is essentially hidden mostly inside the existing helix. When they talk about operations, however, using that new section with "hidden staging" is going to be VERY annoying. I also got in some good discussions about access issues and planning for future maintenance. One of the current problems is that the people designing the access ports and track plan are planning for fairly flexible skinny young guys with long arms, extra elbows, and X-ray vision to deal with things instead of short chubby old men with various forms of arthritis and visual acuity issues. Or as I more delicately phrased it: some of us are going to have a low clearance problem.... while demonstrating the difficulty of reaching in between a spaghetti bowl of wiring to reach some of our moderately inaccessible trackwork (opposed to the extremely inaccessible trackwork that we have).
Getting Along Fu
This morning's kitty mealtime seems to have gone without incident. All the cats were sharing the food without shoving, swatting, or growling. It gives me great hope that the Floor is Lava phase is temporary.
No News is No News
I still haven't heard from Lil Sis'. I left her a voice mail to let me know when her electricity is restored. The last hurricane she endured was Hugo, but she was about 6 years old (yes, there is a large age gap between us) and the parental units and I took care of everything for her. This is the first time she's been on her own during a hurricane. She's perfectly capable, but I still can't help worrying. Based on the news footage, it still looks pretty rough up there.
Traffic Flux
I cannot discern a pattern. Today's traffic was relatively light, calm, and other than the Caddy-wielding bozo tailgating the landscaping truck while texting next to me, there was little dhrama on the Interstate.
USN Reuse and Recycle
I read they are getting ready to decommission the USS Enterprise soon. The article talked about removing the reactors and how the process would effectively destroy the hull in such a way that cutting up the carrier for scrap would be the most cost-effective step following that. Restoring it for a museum or other purpose would be cost prohibitive. But in thinking about it a bit more, could those reactors be refurbished and used to generate electricity for a small city or region? I guess at 50+ years of age, they are considered being past their shelf life, but it seems like such a waste.
After the meeting, I got some insight to the modified plans being thought up about the layout's evolving configuration. The latest discussion is about having another show loop that is essentially hidden mostly inside the existing helix. When they talk about operations, however, using that new section with "hidden staging" is going to be VERY annoying. I also got in some good discussions about access issues and planning for future maintenance. One of the current problems is that the people designing the access ports and track plan are planning for fairly flexible skinny young guys with long arms, extra elbows, and X-ray vision to deal with things instead of short chubby old men with various forms of arthritis and visual acuity issues. Or as I more delicately phrased it: some of us are going to have a low clearance problem.... while demonstrating the difficulty of reaching in between a spaghetti bowl of wiring to reach some of our moderately inaccessible trackwork (opposed to the extremely inaccessible trackwork that we have).
Getting Along Fu
This morning's kitty mealtime seems to have gone without incident. All the cats were sharing the food without shoving, swatting, or growling. It gives me great hope that the Floor is Lava phase is temporary.
No News is No News
I still haven't heard from Lil Sis'. I left her a voice mail to let me know when her electricity is restored. The last hurricane she endured was Hugo, but she was about 6 years old (yes, there is a large age gap between us) and the parental units and I took care of everything for her. This is the first time she's been on her own during a hurricane. She's perfectly capable, but I still can't help worrying. Based on the news footage, it still looks pretty rough up there.
Traffic Flux
I cannot discern a pattern. Today's traffic was relatively light, calm, and other than the Caddy-wielding bozo tailgating the landscaping truck while texting next to me, there was little dhrama on the Interstate.
USN Reuse and Recycle
I read they are getting ready to decommission the USS Enterprise soon. The article talked about removing the reactors and how the process would effectively destroy the hull in such a way that cutting up the carrier for scrap would be the most cost-effective step following that. Restoring it for a museum or other purpose would be cost prohibitive. But in thinking about it a bit more, could those reactors be refurbished and used to generate electricity for a small city or region? I guess at 50+ years of age, they are considered being past their shelf life, but it seems like such a waste.