Robert Pence

How many of those did you finally sell on eBay? I remember you said they were going like hotcakes. :-)

Silly me! Good job! Edit: Maybe if I had alter egos or multiple personalities like that, I could delegate the several things I try to do/think about at once, and get the distraction under control. Just think of all the stuff I could get done!

I can't, either! I guess it comes back to one of my most honored hackneyed sayings, "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." I've been spending a lot of time at the farm, lately. I'll just have to stay alert to possibilities on my trips back and forth. According to one of the local auto-body repair guys, this is the real deer season.

SERVICE ALERT 2010 TEMPORARY WEEKEND CONSTRUCTION OUTAGE SCHEDULE The South Shore is alerting passengers to a series of seven (7) planned temporary weekend construction outages. The first weekend outage is scheduled for May 15. The second outage is planned for August 7. South Shore Line will not operate trains in either direction between South Bend and Gary Metro Center on the following weekends from 2:30 a.m. Saturday thru 3:00 a.m. Monday: •May 15-17 •August 7-9 •August 28-30 •September 18-20 •October 2-4 •October 23-25 •November 6-8 The South Shore will operate regular weekend train service between Gary Metro Center and Chicago. The South Shore will not provide shuttle bus service between South Bend and Gary Metro Center during these temporary weekend outages because of the high number of weekend passengers and variability of demand. Stations affected by this outage include South Bend, Hudson Lake, Carroll Ave. and 11th St. in Michigan City, Beverly Shores, Dune Park, Portage/Ogden Dunes, and Miller. During these weekend outages passengers are encouraged to drive to East Chicago Station. East Chicago is conveniently located 2.6 miles north of I-94 on Indianapolis Blvd (5615 Indianapolis Blvd). It is a modern station with restrooms, plenty of parking and high level boarding for improved accessibility. more ...

The two guys standing make it look like you have bodyguards. The guy sitting on the floor, in profile, kind of looks like you, like maybe he's your brother? When I work at photography usually I do my best work when going solo. There are only three people I can think of that I could have around during photo excursions, and one of them died 17 years ago (age 33, RIP Greg). When I'm editing, I work strictly solo. I have one friend who's a pro who critiques my edited photos and gives me pointers on what to correct or adjust. I was severely ADHD as a kid, before there was such a diagnosis, and as a senior citizen I've never outgrown it; I've just learned to manage it to a fair degree but I'm still vulnerable to being derailed by distractions, including interaction with other people.

Not quite on that level, but when someone contacts me about buying a photo for use in a print ad. I ask them what file format, size, and resolution they want. They respond with "what's that?" or a long silence. That's when I know to ask them for the name and phone number of the person who does their advertising.

I remember when my niece was a manipulative brat, and then an insufferable adolescent, and then a raging teen. Now she has kids of her own, and is an excellent mom. This evening I attended a youth concert at Trinity Episcopal Church, where a couple of her kids are involved in the youth music program. Tomorrow I'll attend a dance recital that includes one of her daugters. Sometimes it's really hard to stay in denial about being old. :wink:

Impressive! When I visited in 2008, on a Friday afternoon, there weren't more than a half-dozen cars parked on Federal, and in a couple of hours walking around with my camera I don't think I saw more than four or five pedestrians.

Coolness X2 if you get matching pickup truck and pickup-bed trailer, and then X2 again if you equip both with matching caps with roof racks. You could keep the wife and just make her ride in the trailer. :-)

Very much so, the last I knew. He was in Fort Wayne a few years ago at the Embassy Theatre; a small, but intimate turnout and a very enjoyable, laid-back performance.

Looking Northeast, about a mile and a half from where I lived from ages 8 - 22. If you go about an hour west of here, it starts to get really flat and stays like that for a couple hundred miles. Looking South, same location:

This topic is inspred by ink's photo of a dead rabbit along the road near Vermilion, in his "5 Days, 1 Diverse State" photo thread, and MTS's enthusiastic response to that photo. It reminded me of this one, taken in October 2006 on a back road outside Coolspring, Pennsylvania: Coolspring is around halfway between Brookville and Punxsutawney, in case curiosity was bothering you. I invite you to add your own finds. :-)

Please note that the sign on the door says "Buy - Sell - Trade." You could turn your no-longer-favored possessions into cash! Or your ex-skank-in-law might want to shop there. And maybe we should have a topic in General Photos dedicated to roadkill. I'll start one here. :-D

Excellent!

"Walk at Lunch" - has anybody come up with a scheme yet to generate revenue by using their building lights to create advertising signs after hours? Beautiful photos. Some of these look like material for a high-quality coffee table book.

Yes, indeed, Happy Birthday MayDay! Give yourself a birthday gift and pick a forumer to excommunicate!

In Oklahoma and Texas? I say upholster the seating with leather, and tell 'em to sit on it! :-D

The nursing profession spans both genders and all ethnicities, and my experience in Chicago was, yes, cute nurses (cute interns and residents, too)! And without exception the male nurses I've met are skilled, competent, and compassionate. My mom is a Registered Nurse, many years retired, and she was once a shift supervisor. She said that she always liked it when there were men on her shift because of their calmness and steadiness of temperament, in addition to their usually greater physical strength for moving patients. So just fantasize being manhandled by a wholesome-looking, clean-cut, strapping young fellow (or two) who plays rugby and soccer on his time off. Seriously, my thoughts are with you. Keep us informed.

Wow. I dont' want to admit it, but internally, I'm scared. When I was younger I went thru a lot of things and that year/year-and-half was painful. It was if my hormones had a mind of their own. Now. I dont even drink coffee and that is a daily battle. I just dont want to have surgery. If it is acromegaly, I've read that there are other treatments that can be tried before resorting to surgery. None of it sounds like a walk in the park, but I completely agree with you about avoiding surgery. The recovery experience depends a lot upon the quality of the facility, though, and from what I've heard, there aren't many places you could be that would be better than Cleveland for quality of care. Edit: Chicago is first-rate, too, both at University of Chicago and at Northwestern. I went through two cancer surgeries at University of Chicago Hospital and a horrendous amount of radiation and chemo, and the hospital and medical staff took good care of me and really went the second mile to make sure I was as comfortable as possible. They continue to monitor me with regular checkups, and my doctor visits make me feel like they really care about me as an individual. My treatment was a clinical trial, and I think I'm one of their longest-surviving lab animals.

Around 11:30 this morning UO was very slow to refresh or load new pages. Finally I exited, thinking maybe getting out and then coming back in would help. It didn't I tried to get back in about 11:45, and the status bar at the bottom of the IE8 window slowly progressed to two bars and then froze. I watched it for about a minute and a half, and then gave up. No other sites that I use were experiencing any difficulty.

I'm not a big fashion shopper. For casual clothes I like Kohl's. Their clothes have held up well for me, the prices are OK, and I watch their sale brochures for the days when there are big discounts for seniors. Most of my clothes-buying is for durable work clothes, stuff that I wear out and replace, and for those I like TSC (Tractor Supply Co.), a primarily farm-supply with stores on the outskirts of most small cities in farm country. They sell Dickies and other name-brand work jeans, shirts, boots & shoes, etc., and while not deeply discounted their prices are fair and their selection includes a wide range of sizes. V&J at Lakeville, Indiana, near South Bend, has an amazing selection of work clothes, too. Carhartt is quality, but it's become something of a fashion label for salt-of-the-earth wannabes with their 4X4 pickup trucks that never get dirty from actually hauling stuff and their rural McMansions with antique farm machinery bought and placed in the front yard to rust/rot down with flowers planted around it.

In my area, Target has nicer stores with more attractive displays and a wider selection of merchandise that includes items of higher quality than Wal-Mart. I seldom encounter shoppers like the ones in various on-line "People of Wal-Mart" photo sets, and that's a plus. Of the major big-box stores in the Fort Wayne area, I usually go first to Target for housewares, and to Wal-Mart as a last resort. I don't shop Meijer for various reasons, foremost of which is their anti-union stance in their local-area stores. For small hardware purchases I go first to an in-town Do-It-Best that's locally-owned. For larger stuff like bathroom fixtures I'll most likely go to Lowe's, and if they don't have what I'm looking for, I'll check out Menards. Home Depot has been a total fail on every visit except one. Groceries come from Scott's/Kroger, next door to the Do-It-Best Hardware. Scott's was a regional chain until Kroger bought them a few years ago. Electronics and computer parts & supplies are almost always bought on-line, since the last of our good local electronics retailers was forced out of business by the big-box stores. For small items that I want/need right now, like a cable or keyboard or mouse, sometimes I'll go to Best Buy or Staples. Staples sometimes has good deals, but you have to know what you're buying. They may have hardware that's one generation obsolete for full list price; major on-line suppliers like Tiger Direct or Newegg may have the same item for half as much money.

Great progress! For me, the most amazing part of creating a good layout would be the landscaping; recreating man-made objects is pretty straightforward, and with practice I think I could master most of that. Recreating natural forms in miniature looks like it takes a special artistic talent set that I haven't developed. A rail-trail should bring a lot of visitors to the site. I've heard many railroad enthusiasts denounce rail-trails as though trail development brought about the demise of the railroad line, but that's not the case; trail development is initiated on ROW where rail operations already have been discontinued, and it preempts encroachment by commercial and residential uses, and preserves the ROW for possible future re-utilization for rail service. Rail-trails sometimes bring tourism-related small-business opportunities to languishing small communities.

Apology accepted. I'm not intolerant, though; I simply know what's best, and so long as people do what they should, we get along fine. :wink: