Robert Pence

. That's odd. :? Those guys said that if I just let them implant that chip, I could travel wherever/whenever I pleased. It's largely a consquence of laissez-faire economics. Businesses do what produces the best short-term return for investors, without concern for what best serves the public, the environment, or the long-term best interests of the nation and the world at large. This digresses from the Amtrak topic, so I'll try to keep it short. Thirty years ago and more, common-carrier bus lines already were struggling in the less-densely populated areas away from the coasts and were underwriting their passenger losses with respectable package freight revenues and profits from areas with dense ridership. Bus package express was how you got fast ground transportation for general merchandise, and almost every town of more than a couple hundred population had some kind of service, sometimes three or four times daily. In bigger cities, bus lines contracted with local couriers or cab companies for to-your-door delivery. As interstate highways and commercial aviation expanded with taxpayer money, the parcel express services like UPS, Fed Ex and DHL were able to cherry-pick that profitable freight business without having to pay the higher insurance, capital, and operating costs for vehicles and terminals associated with passenger transportation. The bus lines chose not to subsidize their Middle-America service with profits from the dense coastal regions, and stated dropping routes like crazy. Trailways and most of the regionals are dead, and Greyhound is a skeleton. I said try; I guess that is short, for me.

Not Amtrak news on a national scale, but news for me: I'm taking Amtrak tomorrow from Waterloo, Indiana to Chicago. Except for three years ago between Chicago and Milwaukee, this will be the first time I've taken Amtrak to Chicago since Fort Wayne lost service circa 1990. The online reservation process was pretty straightforward and easy, and I got my ticket by mail. In looking at the ticketing options I was reminded that from Fort Wayne, a city of 200K population, the nearest staffed Amtrak station with checked baggage is 100 miles away (South Bend). It looks like there's no such thing as an impulse trip under the current reservation and ticketing system. I can't just wake up on Saturday morning and think, "I'll go to Chicago today," even though my senior fare is only $44.20 round trip and Waterloo is maybe a half-hour drive up Interstate 69. For a last-minute trip, I have to drive 100 miles to South Bend where I can board any of the South Shore trains that run every two hours, without a reservation, for under $20 round trip. Greyhound is out of the question. Just for grins, I checked the schedule. There are two trips daily, and both arrive in Chicago too late in the day to be useful. One goes by way of - get this - Toledo (with a layover), and takes almost nine hours. The old schedule had multiple trips right up US 30 and took under four hours. Anyway, my first Amtrak ride in years. It's a fairly short trip, but on a long-distance train. I'll report back with an evaluation in a few days. The last time, I got told off for taking photos on the train (passengers' privacy); we'll see if the tradition continues.

Sounds like the drugs triggered a psychotic break, and he emerged on the other side in a permanent state of schizophrenic hallucination. :weird:

If you're talking about that, I already identified it several posts back. It's Tom's & Ray's lawyers in the credits at the end of Car Talk on NPR. Pay attention, whippersnappers!

And there will be others (You know who you are). As they slip through the door furtively, apprehensively scanning the room, in unison we can call out that familiar refrain, "Girlfriend! We were just wondering how long it would be before you showed up here!" :-D

:-o Oh, Man! That's frightening. Fortunately I gave it up because I'm a lousy dancer. I happen to know, though, that there actually are people on these forums who dance! I'll fill out a prayer request for them and drop it in the offering plate today. :angel: In the small-town church I attended as a teen, the pastor, much beloved by the congregation and something of a small-town patriarch, was honored with a big celebration for his 25 years of service. He was big man with a powerful voice, and an imposing old-school preacher of old-time religion, at least in the pulpit and when teaching catechism class. He had his moments, though. A couple of months after the pastor's big 25-year celebration, the Youth Fellowship group held a square dance in the church basement. I'm not sure how we even got away with scheduling that, but the pastor, who always attended our events, was there. As things got rolling, he got into the spirit of it and joined in. The word got out, and the ensuing hooo-hah culminated in his being asked to resign. He accepted a call to another congregation in a town about twenty miles away, and several families transferred their memberships to that church. The aftershocks of that square dance continued to rock that place, and not in a good way, for at least a couple of years. I suspect some of the people who left might even have been card-players, too, although I seriously doubt if anyone from that church ever used curse-words or touched alcohol. Even the cups in the communion trays were filled with freshly-reconstituted Concord Grape juice from Welch's frozen concentrate.

The solution is to reduce service to where all vehicles are packed so full that there's no possibility of falling. We're well on the way to that.

Neat stuff. Clearly the sound was dubbed when the film was transferred to video, because sync sound didn't exist in 1905. I've seen other video footage made from 8mm film stock from the late 30s and early 40s, where they dubbed sound made with museum rolling stock. It was done pretty skilfully. I've seen another film of 1905 footage of a streetcar ride down Market Street in San Francisco. It's even more interesting because it's out in full daylight, with pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicle traffic.

Possibly were seeing the effects of self-regulation by the market - decreasing price results in increased demand against a limited supply, which causes prices to increase, which impedes the increase in demand. Maybe we'll see a series of diminishing swings back and forth, eventually resulting in some kind of equilibrium among supply, demand, and price. Most likely political intervention will distort the process to some extent.

I think too many people harbor the misperception that blue-collar workers are in those jobs because they aren't able to hold down a salaried /white-collar job. That's not the case at all; a lot of the blue-collar guys I've know are in their jobs because that's what they love to do, and in a lot of cases those jobs require more brain-power and initiative than many administrative jobs. For example, because of the sophistication of computerized power-train control systems, diesel technicians who work on trucks, locomotives, and power-plant engines have to master a very broad spectrum of skills, from basic mechanics and machine-repair to eletronic systems troubleshooting. They have to understand the technical complexities and have the manual dexterity and mechanical aptitude to maintain and repair precision equipment, and they have to know how all that stuff interrelates in a variety of applications. My first professional/occupational training was as a draftsman and machinist/toolmaker, and somehow I digressed over to manufacturing cost analysis and later into computer tech support where I did what I considered essentially blue-collar technician work while wearing a white shirt and tie. I connect better with blue-collar men with brains and diverse interests, than with management-professional types. And going back to your reference, DanB, the Car Talk guys are an excellent example of what I mean. They're bright, well-educated, articulate, funny, and their field is in automobile technology and repair, almost a quintessential blue-collar field.

Has the upturn started? I haven't been out yet today to look around, but on Thursday my nearest Speedway station, which usually has among the lowest prices in my part of town, was $1.42. Last night when I came by there, it was $1.79. That's the first time in a couple of weeks that it's done anything but drop, and that's quite a jump.

Aaaaa-MEN, brother! Same goes for fat-free baked goods. Why should I buy fat-free cookies, when I can get the same experience for free by chewing on a discarded piece of carboard?

Neat stuff - very artistic compositions!

It has the opposite effect on me. I remember from a visit to Cass, WV, how chilly and brisk the wind can be at those elevations, even in midsummer. It's exhilarating, unless you didn't bring a warm jacket. Then, it soon gets damn cold! Williamsport looks nice and well-kept. I've only been through there once, and that was long ago, so I don't remember much about it. It was in Spring, though, and the orchards along the Susquehanna Valley were in bloom. It was one of the most gorgeous drives I've ever experienced.

What do you mean? Latin for "sea" is "mare." Latin "maritimus" means "of the sea."

Here are a couple more that are good with hard-to-find stuff: Harris Cyclery. Home turf of the late Sheldon Brown, universally revered as an all-weather cycling guru. Yellow Jersey. Their web site currently is kind of a mess because they had problems with an ISP, but the info is there, and there's contact info.

Gasoline hit $1.35 in some stations in Fort Wayne yesterday, a 5-year low.

Neat stuff! I'm fascinated by maritime history.

Try to have a little empathy for the poor sales girl. Here she is, this hot-ass model before whom everyone should be bowing down in adoration, and she's being forced into a demeaning position of servitude, actually expected to be nice to people. :cry: :-D :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Chadoh21, that is hilarious! It caught me completely by surprise, and I laughed so hard I thought I was gonna' pee my pants! Ooops! :oops: Be back in a minute.

Switch back to the old lady sun glasses! :P :laugh: Don't listen to him. It's a good look. Looks studious but stops short of being a nerd. (We won't tell anyone)

I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I believe, when "under God" was added to the pledge. I still have the mental picture of that classroom where we recited the pledge first thing every morning, and I remember the teacher explaining the change to us. In that same school all the classes gathered in the auditorium one morning a week - I think it was Monday morning - for "chapel." It was a sort of scaled-down church service, with prayers, hymns, the whole works. Participation was mandatory, but no one challenged it because no one would have owned up to being non-Christian. It wasn't a parochial school. It was a public school in rural Northeastern Indiana, with 200-300 students in eight grades. Those were the good old days. Senator Joe McCarthy was protecting us from communists who had infiltrated government, the military, and our everyday lives, and his right-hand man, a young lawyer named Roy Cohn, was aggressively ferreting out homosexuals in government, whose furtive immoral acts and consequent vulnerability to blackmail made them the Greatest Threat to Democracy in History. Ronald Reagan was dedicated to exposing people in Hollywood whose personal conduct and public performances undermined the values crucial to Freedom and the American Way.

Not fun, really. Some of the forumers have heard the story. For now I'll just say that it involved a lengthy encounter with the medical profession. The process seems to have suppressed my confrontational genes. No, it wasn't a lobotomy! I didn't become a Republican; my grasp of sarcasm and irony is still intact. :wink:

Wow! Corruption in Illinois politics! Who would have guessed? :-o

So long as it's not overdone, I can accept it in men, too. So many men model themselves after the Dodge Hemi guys that a fit, decently-groomed and -dressed man who carries himself well really stands out from the herd. Aside from public illiteracy, nothing makes me loose my temper quicker then morons peddling bicycles on the sidewalks. And yet you've made your home in Pennsylvania. I got news for ya; that ain't the year-around sunshine capital of North America. :wink: