Robert Pence

Beautiful! I can imagine it in spring, when the sun shines and buds are opening. The building on the corner in the second photo looks like an older conjoined pair of houses that got a makeover around 1900. Kind of strange, but interesting.

Good photo tour, sad story. A friend who died a little less than a year ago worked for Michigan DOT, probably in the late sixties or early seventies. His office was in that building, and he said that when he worked there, the building was largely vacant. According to him, the only time it saw a reasonable occupancy rate was during WWII, and even then it was far from full. In the early 80s I caught a train from there to Toledo. The place was getting run-down and dusty, but was still intact and maintained. There was a police precinct in it, with maybe one or two cops, and hardly anyone in any of the offices. I walked around the outside to look it over, and one of the cops told me that I shouldn't be out there by myself. That was mid-afternoon on a weekday.

You should be able to build a killer system for about $500. I buy all my electronic stuff from newegg. The only thing I really need is a custom case, right now I'm still using my dell e521 case which can't handle a good video card. Basically, all I need is a motherboard, CPU, and RAM, I think. I already have a Thermaltake Tsunami black case, and it's beautiful. It has plenty of cooling with big, quiet fans, luxury-car finish, clear side-panel, and all the interior brackets and slots fit perfectly with no forcing or jiggering. I have a 500W Ultra power supply and a pair of WD Raptor 10,000rpm SATA drives as RAID 0 for my Drive C:. My data drive is a separate 500GB SATA drive. I can reuse all that stuff. I've just started browsing specs and I need to bring myself back up to date, but so far the AMD mobo that has caught my eye is the Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3HP, at $85.99. It has an ATI Radeon HD 3200 video chipset onboard, and the capability to handle more CPU and RAM than I can ever use up, along with enough USB ports to accomodate all my peripheral toys.

You should be able to build a killer system for about $500. I buy all my electronic stuff from newegg. The only thing I really need is a custom case, right now I'm still using my dell e521 case which can't handle a good video card. I'll reply in the "off-topic" thread so as not to take this one so far off topic. :-D

That's one of the most comprehensive, factual, and well-informed articles I've read on the topic.

Was there a rate increase effective with the beginning date of the extremely high bill? Something I caught AEP at years ago, but never was able to get anything done about it - they'd render an extremely under-estimated bill the month before a rate increase was to take effect, and then include the usage adjustment in the next month's bill at the higher rate. Effectively they were billing the new, higher rate a month early. Do you have a ceiling fan? If you don't, that would make a great big difference. With a high ceiling, warm air stratifies more than you can imagine. Put a thermometer on a long pole and put it up near your ceiling for a while and see how much warmer it is there than, say, four feet above the floor. Even an ordinary fan pointed toward the ceiling and run on low would make a difference by breaking up that stratification. You whippersnappers and your twenty-something metabolism! I used to keep my place like that, and when anyone came to visit, they'd either keep their coat on and try to tough it out, or ask if I could please turn up the heat. Nowadays, I should have a blanket over my shoulders and a big ol' cat to sleep in my lap when I'm sitting down.

I haven't gone out on a weeknight to get sh!tfaced drunk in a long time. Tonight may be the night. :| Actually, I'll probably surf Newegg and Tiger Direct instead. It's been 3 years, and I'm thinking about creating a new system.

For years we had three local chains; Maloley's, Rogers, and Scott's, that provided pretty decent stores with OK prices. Maloley's gave up to the chains first. Rogers tried to compete by going warehouse a la Sam's Club, but failed. Scott's held on, though. Admittedly, they adjusted the quality of the shopping experience to maximize profits; in the towns that had a major competitor like Crap-Mart or Meijer, they'd have reallllllyyyy nice stores with beautiful produce. Where there was no competition, they put forth less effort. Scott's was bought by Super Valu, and then by Kroger. Some things changed, like better prices on some stuff, but not nearly the wide selection like we had from Scott's very good in-house bakery, and some things make me want to yell at the manager. Every time I go in there, the store has been rearranged and stuff has been moved around. Successive rearrangements make less and less sense. Example: Once upon a time, long ago, ice cream toppings were in the same aisle with the freezers that held ice cream. Now, they're two aisles away, with the candy. The teeny-tiny overpriced bottles and jars of toppings, that is. If you want the big 48-ounce squeeze-bottles of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup, those are in the baking supplies aisle. That was yesterday, anyway. Next time I look for them, they might be with the jams and jellies, or maybe the salsa, which is nowhere near the aisle with the chips. You want some dip for them chips? Look in the dairy department. Or maybe the deli, next week. You want some honey? Look with the jams and jellies, right? Wrong. Check the aisle with the pickles, peppers, and olives. Toilet paper in the paper products aisle with the tissues and paper towels? Nope. Better check the pharmacy department for tissues. Who knows where in hell the TP went. I emailed Kroger's customer service about it and got a nice reply that probably was sent automatically, saying my comments would be forwarded to the store manager. Probably forwarded to the trash folder. :whip: I do like the automated self-checkout lanes, though they need someone to smack the idiots who start to check out, and then leave a lane tied up while they run back to look for something they forgot :-)

I don't know what became of his layout. He's been in a nursing home with Alzheimer's for several years, now. I run into his daughter occasionally, but it has never occurred to me at the moment to ask about his railroad. The last time I talked with her, she said that he still knows his family members, but she wasn't sure how much longer that would last. Alzheimer's is such a tragedy. He was a brilliant, articulate man who managed to make the transition from a conservative small-town congregation to a larger city church where his sensibilities evolved. He became an outspoken advocate for gays, immigrants, and labor. He was calm and able to talk reasonably with the people with whom he disagreed, and whether or not he ever changed anyone's mind, most were willing to hear him out.

I haven't followed the model railroading magazines, but I know that some of them include dimensioned drawings for buildings for model railroad layout construction. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to create something like those in autocad and sell them on CD or download. Would it be possible to create them so that they could easily be scaled for different-sized layouts, from N or HO clear up to LGB size for garden railroads? I know some model railroaders who spend hours with an X-acto knife painstakingly cutting and shaping and gluing and painting. A local Presbyterian minister used to model in HO and laid his own track, spiking rails to ties. He built a tavern near his rail yard that had a bar and stools and tables inside, and you could lift off the roof to see all the details. Guys like him probably wouldn't want to buy anything ready-made.

Yes, 1/8 scale describes it. It's 7- or 7 1/2-inch gauge, and standard gauge is 56 1/2 inches (4 feet, 8 1/2 inches). Hesston also features an extensive 1/4 scale layout as well as 2-foot and 3-foot track, with Czech-built and German locomotives and a Shay. The 1/4-scale setup was mostly a bequest from the RR Donnelly (publishing magnate) estate and includes several locomotives in various styles, all very accurately detailed. Some of those 1/8 scale locomotives are surprisingly powerful. Very soon after they leave the station area, they encounter a steep grade. With six or eight generously-proportioned adults on the train, they can accelerate up that hill fast enough that you'd end up running to keep up. You can see more of the goodies at Hesston here. It's not as big or as elaborate as Strasburg, but they have an interesting variety of toys. It's straight north of La Porte, Indiana, and the track comes within spitting distance (literally) of the Michigan state line.

I have neither the money nor the time for model railroading, but if I did, it would be this stuff: 1.5 inches to the foot, coal-fired live steam. The power of engines this size is amazing. It's like garden railroading on a grand scale. I think this part of the Hesston operation covers about twenty acres of an old gravel pit that's partly grown up in trees.

All that sun, heat, and beach traffic and those crowds must get old in a hurry! Those photos make me grateful for our dark, cold, snowy days this time of year. :|

Great tour and photos!

Never been banned, because I'm just so nice. :angel:

From the pics, it looks pretty decent. I like it, and the pics are enjoyable, too.

Neat stuff!

Ahh, but Wisconsin is scenic and beautiful, with lakes and hills and woods and rolling farmland. Summers are delicious, all the more so because they give respite from the rigorous winters. There's no shortage of good-looking men and most people are genuinely decent and friendly and good company. You're not likely to encounter a bunch of attitude there.

Wonderful photos. Some beautiful people, and some other people, too. The color of the water off that beach is enticing. It's snowing here, with a winter storm warning and a prediction of up to 9 inches accumulation by Saturday afternoon. I was sitting at the kitchen table watching cars slide off the curve into the park, but it got boring after a while. A nice chain-reaction pileup might have held my interest, but so far ...

And all this time I thought, those people were called lushes and sloppy drunk queens! And I learned early-on not to ride to any event or activity with other gays, so that I could leave when I was ready. For most, leaving before the party died of old age meant making the rounds of all attendees and exchanging a kiss or two and a lengthy farewell to the host, full of meaningless cliches and insincere well wishes. The "goodbye" ceremony was sure to take at least half an hour. I coulda' called a cab or maybe even walked home by the time my ride was ready to leave. Yeah. Don't get caught! My contribution - One of my major gripes when I was gainfully employed was people who would show up late for business meetings, and then want a full recap of everything they had missed. If a meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m. and it's a five-minute walk from their desk, they set their reminder for 2 p.m., not 1:50. When the thing goes off, that means they should check their email, maybe answer some of it, check their voice mail, return a call, and then set out for the meeting and stop on the way to chat about last night's game with a co-worker they ran into while stopping at the restroom. If it was my meeting and there was anyone else present at 2 p.m., I started the meeting. I refused to recap for latecomers who might straggle in over the next 15 minutes, saying that I didn't believe in punishing the punctual. Even if it was someone else's meeting, unless it was a really high muckety-muck, usually I could prod them into adopting my approach. Over a fairly short time, people who worked with me began to take punctuality more seriously.

That sounds like they clearly have grounds for a lawsuit, and the people who confiscated their camera might even be subject to prosecution. Requiring someone to delete images is a gray area, but I think the law is clear about taking possession of property without a warrant; they can't take physical control of your camera or memory card.

It's funny how midwesterners have long considered California a gay paradise. Wasn't Wisconsin the first to enact state legislation banning employment and housing discrimination based upon sexual orientation? I'm thinking California followed a parade of about a dozen other states in that regard.

Damn fine stuff. The crowd shots are fantastic! I'll have to remember about the scaffolds, and I need to get into the loop late at night. Re the date on the photo looking down the el tracks at Trump from the overhead bridge, a photo from mid-June, 2008 shows the platforms redone with white roofs & skylight sections. Trump appears to be only slightly farther along than in your photo, so your shot could well have been early '08. I think it was shot from the same station as yours, except from the bridge at the south end of the platforms. BTW, Chicago is not in Michigan; it's in Wisconsin. It's a streetcar suburb of Milwaukee; the North Shore interurban quit running in the mid 1960s, though.

Excellent composition, and the sepia tone works well with it.

Some folks never know for sure. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm really straight. None of my attempts at gay relationships worked out, and then there's my penchant for working on tractors and other machinery, and plumbing and wiring and concrete and carpentry and welding. And I'm fashion-challenged. Or maybe I'm a transgendered lesbian ... :?