Robert Pence

Around 1981 I rode Amtrak from Fort Wayne via Chicago to Austin, Texas. The train out of Chicago then was known as the Inter-American. Ridership was rather light, and my Superliner sleeper (then brand-new) was sparsely populated. I struck up a conversation with a couple of railroaders on vacation, and later that evening ended up having coffee with them and the conductor. In the vicinity of Bloomington, Illinois, we were running a few minutes down and the engineer was pushing to try to make it up. The track wasn't all that good at speed, and the ride was rough enough that the conductor was grumbling about it. Then, we went over something - a switch, a crossover, possibly a diamond - and it felt like the car went airborne. The conductor's coffee cup - the old-school heavy china - tipped on its saucer and spilled. He picked up his radio; "Charlie, if we go in a ditch, I don't wanna have to 'splain for you." Just about right away I could feel the speed lessening.

I remember the one at Quaker Square. In the restaurant there was a working crossing signal too, with flashing lights and ringing bell, that would activate when trains passed outside.

My experience was better than I anticipated. My nieces and nephews are pretty good at managing their toddlers and maintaining some degree of order while still letting the kids play and have fun together. Toddlers are delightful in moderate doses, probably because they're someone else's; their inquisitiveness is amazing, and I think I get a little more respect than their immediate families because they don't see me often. Having stuff for them to do without running amok is good, too; my niece has a basement room that's fairly toddler-proof; it's carpeted and free from hard obstructions they can crash into, the toys are big and soft and they can throw them around without breaking anything or hurting each other. One of the good things about celebrating Thanksgiving with younger relatives who have bunches of small kids is the lack of stuffiness. No fine china or formal table settings, or getting frustrated trying to taste your food before it gets cold, while constantly being interrupted by passing stuff. The food was abundant and good, served buffet-style, and eaten from paper plates at folding tables. It was a completely stress-free meal with no harping about manners (the kids or mine) and clean-up was simple.

Excellent way to kick off the holiday weekend! Thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving, all. I'll be spending the afternoon with a niece and her husband, a nephew and his wife, and their collective tribe of a half-dozen or so rugrats and ankle-biters. The possiblity exists that I may be used as a jungle gym by any number of them.

Last December, my ride to Chicago on the Late Shore Limited from Waterloo was rough, jiggly and rattly. Returning on the Capitol Limited, the ride was significantly smoother. I don't know if it's the difference between the Late Shore's Amfleet cars and the Capitol's heavier Superliners, or if the eastbound track was just in better shape than the westbound.

It seems to me that in some older posts he wrote some good stuff about Sturmey Archer hubs, and I know from some of his comments in Three Speed Gallery (link on the right side of his blog) that he's well-versed in the model numbers and specs. He has written about an annual group ride on three-speeds in the Minneapolis area, and I think he wrote recently about reluctantly parting with one of his three-speed bikes. I'm still itching to build an enclosed-gear city bike with the PX-10 frame, the new SA alloy sealed hub, North Road bars, a drum-style front brake, and a Brooks B-72 saddle. This time of year isn't good for me financially, though; my car insurance, homeowner's insurance, and property tax fall installment all hit in November, and then there's Christmas. On the other hand, the corn harvest was good and the price is holding up fairly well ... Edit: I just did some googling on bike parts. The new Sturmey-Archer alloy 3-speed hub is SRF3. It sells for $80-$90. A front hub with drum brake and dynohub 3-watt generator is X-FDD, $80-$90 on the Harris Cyclery site.

I'm challenged when it comes to page builders and various site formatting tools, and I found it easier to learn the basics of HTML. With it you can write much cleaner code than the page builders create. I write code in Word Pad and save it as plain text with the file name extension ".html." With minor editing to the tags and links you can post the same content to the forums.

My biggest Christmas expense will be the freight on a 5-pound lump of coal for my brother in Austin, TX. Or maybe I should wrap it up nice and ship it the most expensive way, collect.

My sister-in-law used to catch all kinds of grief from total strangers for keeping my nephew on a leash when they were away from home. Without the leash, though, the kid probably wouldn't have survived to his fourth birthday. He's grown now and manages his ADHD pretty well without meds, but he has a toddler who's putting him through the same things he put his mom through. The property damage around home is exceeded only by the medical bills that resulted from a moment's inattention.

You don't know what you're missing. I think not, I've slept with women! They don't know what they're missing. I guess we Gold Star Gays are a rare species.

I seem to recall that around thirty years ago there was a plan to extend the Rapid to Gates Mills via mostly-existing ROW, but that fell through.

Looks posh compared to what I could afford. Nice tour; the autumn light is great, and the area is beautiful.

Some decent buildings scattered around the town. The courthouse is a beauty.

Looks pleasant enough to me. Good photos on a gorgeous day.

Chapel of the Resurrection, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana Nave and chancel are 98 feet high. Dedicated 1959 as Memorial Chapel, renamed in 1969. Architects were Charles Stade and Associates, of Park Ridge, IL.

... and the one at between Fly, OH and Sistersville, WV. According to various sources, it's the oldest one of the four remaining, having operated since 1817. Beautiful shots, Sherman. The light and the mist really work together.

Springfield has a surprisingly decent downtown, considering the horrendous retail sprawl on the outskirts. In the 80s when I worked for GE, I spent some time at a plant there setting up the hardware for an on-line production scheduling and inventory tracking system and training production-line people to use it. I was treated very nicely by everyone I met.

This year I replaced my Epson 2200 printer with an R2880. I always thought the 2200 was excellent, and it was; a lot of people crank out beautiful prints with it. The R2880 with the Ultra-Chrome inks and Ultra Premium Lustre Paper really surprised me, though. I made a print of one of my favorite images with a bright-red caboose against a snowy background, and the difference from the print I had made on the 2200 was dramatic. My system was already calibrated and profiled, and I used the downloaded Epson print profile for the paper. It was pretty near spot-on, and required very little tweaking to get a really gorgeous print. The R2880 prints up to 13x19. A friend bought the 3800, which I believe goes up to 17" wide. I rarely need anything that big, and when I do, there's a very good custom printer just six blocks away who can give me same-day turnaround if I take a disc first thing in the morning.

One restraint when framing your own big prints is that retail mat board and mounting board come in 32x40 sheets. I've never found a way to seam a mat without it being conspicuous. And Nielsen-Bainbridge has discontinued their wood frame component kits. Their plain black gallery frame was my long-time favorite, and it was available in sizes up to 40" on a side at a local art-supply store. In the sixties I got a peek inside the darkroom at Dover AFB where they printed aerial recon photos. Their 8x10 enlarger was horizontal, with a cast-iron frame and a head that rolled back and forth on rails. The machine was built to be vibration-resistant and and probably weighed around a ton.

Rob, is that the Airplane Express at 407 N. Main Street? I'm talking about where E. Division Road (IN 124) takes off eastbound from Main Street (IN 1/116). I have had the good fortune of filling up not once, but twice, at that station. The first time was in April 2003 (when it was still Phillips 66), but when I returned in June 2004, it switched over to Marathon. Yes, it is. I grew up on a dairy farm south of Bluffton and went to high school there (BHS Class of '57). The Airplane Station was (still is, I think) open 24 hours, and in my late teens/early twenties it was where I got my '56 Ford serviced and where we stopped for gas or to use a restroom when a bunch of us were out running around at ridiculously late hours. That photo was taken when I was home from the USAF on Christmas leave in 1962.

He's Kingofthehill on SSP. And, yeah! Wow, I just jumped over to SSP and checked out his Buenos Aires thread to see what we're talking about. Just wow. That is an insanely awesome photo thread. Now, check out this thread for proof that he doesn't have to travel to exotic locations to get kick-a$$ photos.

I'll second both of those. I have yet to use my live view, and don't anticipate that I ever will. And yes, the scene affects the outcome a lot. The nature and level of the light, the severity of contrast, the amount of fine detail, etc., all affect how a big enlargement will look. My first DSLR was a D70 (6+ megapixels, as I recall) and for most general urban scenes I was able to print 12x18 without any problems. Ten megapixels should take good care of you for quite a while, especially with good software like Photoshop. You might find Genuine Fractals interesting. From everything I've heard, the software does a good job of living up to the vendor's claims.

I remember Diers' article in Trains. I had read Kwitney's article years earlier, and as I read Diers', I couldn't help reflecting back. I couldn't figure out where Diers was coming from, but I was pretty sure he was either misinformed or in denial.

He's Kingofthehill on SSP. And, yeah!