Thursday January 4, 2007 7:05 am Lethbridge Sunrise 8:28 Sunset 16:44 Hours of daylight: 8:16

A. Morning Musings

7:05 am It is 0 C at the moment with a high of +3 C forecast.

I have a coffee meet with my coffee mate at 8:30 this morning. The remainder of the day seems free. I only have 4 items on the Immediate list for today. That is more realistic than the 8 - 12 that I often had last year. I will phone the hobby shop and see if the model cement has arrived yet. I would like to continue assembling the coaling tower. I have been putting off looking at the iPhoto book for too long. Today I will have a look at it. The last chapter on file management and backing up of files is particularly important. This looks like an easy day. I like that.

B. Plan

Immediate
Health	Walk & exercise	1 hr
Technology	Begin reading "iPhoto"	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "Virginia Woolf: The Inner Life" by Julia Briggs	1 hr
Model Trains	Nail down roadbed and track for Pine Ridge, The Channon & Queenston	4 hr
Later
Chores	Investigate water softeners for home
Technology	Read manual for cell phone
	Make notes for chap. 4 of "Switching to the Mac"
	digital photography - learn about using the various manual settings
Mathematics	Read "Fearless Symmetry" chap 9: Elliptic Curves
Model Trains	Add ground cover to oil refinery diorama
	Continue assembly of coaling tower
	Purchase DCC system
History	Read Watson "Ideas"
Philosophy	Read & make notes for "Breaking the Spell"
GO	Complete reading "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go"
Puzzles	The Orange Puzzle Cube: puzzle #10

C. Actual/Notes

	Model Trains 03 January 4
Model Trains Notes
7:40 PM I put in about 4 hours today laying foam roadbed and nailing down track in Pine Ridge (easy), the Channon (easy) and Queenston (difficult). The difficulty emerged when I realized that there was not enough room for 3 sets of track on one side of the meat packing plant and two sets of track on the other side. The solution was to move all of the buildings and track about an inch toward the center of the layout. It took a while to remove the nails from what had already been done and to then relay and nail down the new layout. This also resulted in a change to the overall track plan within Queenston and the moving of two buildings (a flour mill and a propane tank) to a totally different location. I used up almost two complete packages of foam roadbed as well as placing four new turnouts within the town area. In the process of moving the track and inch to the left (see bottom left photo) I had to disconnect one of the electrical leads to the track. I must remember to reconnect this tomorrow. The angular track (bottom left photo again) connecting the three tracks on the left to the two tracks on the right is a totally new track. The only track remaining to be nailed down is within the Coaldale classification yard. However I will need to buy one more package of the foam underbed in order to complete this. I am using 5/8" x 18 Ga. wire nails (National brand N278-127 V7710), which I was able to find at Totem Hardware, to nail the track down. This works extremely well. I am also having some preliminary thoughts about adding a loop around the entire room and about a foot or so above the existing layout. This would be a very simple loop with three track widths, two for a loop going in each direction and one for a few passing sidings. This would allow me to create a few long haul trains (e.g. a passenger train, a modern grain train, the turbo) and simply let them run around the perimeter. Just a thought at the moment. SUMMARY of the session: I made substantial progress with the track layout today. It is almost finished, except for the placement of the under the track uncoupling magnets.

D. Reflection

10:00 PM The only Learning activity for the day was working on my model train layout. That is a very enjoyable and focused activity. The time just flies by as I concentrate on what I am doing, always looking for a way in which the layout can be improved. I did have a glance at the iPhoto chapter on file maintenance, but not enough to actually begin working on it. Maybe tomorrow.