Thursday January 11, 2007 5:00 am Lethbridge Sunrise 8:26 Sunset 16:53 Hours of daylight: 8:27

A. Morning Musings

5:00 am It is -20 C at the moment with a high of -19 C forecast. The windchill temperature is -32 C.

Coffee at The Ugly Mug at 8:30 this morning, but I will make myself a cuppa now to get started.

From rear window	South patio
Both images taken at 12:50 PM

B. Plan

Immediate
Health	Walk & exercise	1 hr
Technology	Begin reading "iPhoto"	1 hr
	Digital photography - learn about using the various manual settings	1 hr
Model Trains	Review track planning software	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "Virginia Woolf: The Inner Life" by Julia Briggs	1 hr
	Continue reading "The Waves" by Virginia Woolf.	3 hr
Later
Chores	Investigate water softeners for home
Technology	Read manual for cell phone
	Make notes for chap. 4 of "Switching to the Mac"
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/Note

	Model Trains 06 January 11
Model Trains Notes
5:10 am Yesterday " I spent a couple of hours viewing websites of model train layouts. Some of these were incredibly impressive! It makes my efforts look like the amateur effort they actually are. At one point I was sufficiently chastened that I seriously thought of stopping what I was doing and beginning over. Then reason asserted itself, thankfully, and I decided that what I was doing was not that bad and that I still had a lot of Learning in front of me as I worked on wiring the layout for DCC and to then gain some experience with realistic operations. There will be lots of time in the future to think about a new layout. However I can take a few steps in that direction by doing more reading on layout planning and computer software for this." I want to play with track layout possibilites a bit this morning. First, I want to see what is available for Atlas sectional track, since that is what I am using. I have noticed a web site for the Layout Design Specil Interest Group (LDSIG) that I want to spend some time on. Next, I want to view a few personal web sites that use track layout software to show their particular system. I will begin this by seeing what I can find at The Gauge Forum. 1. Atlas I didn't see any links on their web site for track planning software. However I did notice reference in their HO Forum to something called ProTrac. Now to google that and see what happens. "ProTrac model trains" failed to produce any useful hits. I will try google again, this time with "Atlas track planning software". Bingo. The first hit was perfect: http://www.atlasrr.com/righttrack.htm . Much to my surprise, it is on the Atlas web site. The good news is that it is free. The bad news is that it is for PC only. Now to figure out how to download it on the Mac, copy the file to a memory stick, and then access it using Parallels (which is Windows xp mode). The first step is to register with the Atlas web site. Done. That was easy - I only had to provide an email address. Now to see what their email says. It gives instructions for downloading the file, which are very straigh forward. Done. I now have the zip file on my (Mac) desktop. Now to copy the file to a memory stick. Done. I am not sure if it is necessary to remove the memory stick before switching to Windows, but I will do that. Now to use Parallels and see if I can get this working [6:02 am] [7:10 am] I am back in OS X. My trip to the dark side was a success. It only took 7 minutes to switch from OS X to Windows xp, locate the zip file, open the file, install the RTS software, and begin using it. Excellent. I was able to follow the tutorial and create a figure-8 track layout without any difficulty. I now want to see if I can locate any other examples of layouts using this software. Back to the Atlas web site. Nothing. I tried google: "rts track layout" and found this site: http://www.layoutdepot.com/ . Now to have a look at it. Here is a page from this web site that focuses on RTS layouts: http://www.layoutdepot.com/designs.ihtml?step=2&sw=Atlas%20RTS&scale=HO SUMMARY of the session: I found and went through the tutorial for the Atlas RTS (Right Track System) layout software. 7:55 am 10:00 am 2. LDSIG Here is a web page on software: http://ldsig.org/wiki/index.php/Drawing_Your_Layout_-_Manual_and_Software_Solutions#Using_a_computer_program_to_plan_your_layout I have an early version of 3rd PlanIt. Now to see if I can find information on RR-Track. Success. http://www.rrtrack.com/index.html . I have just posted a message to The Gauge to see if I can get any feedback from existing users of this software. It certainly looks good from their web site. 10:55 am 11:20 am While having a shower it occurred to me that I should have tried a search on The Gauge using "RR-Track" as a keyword. I just tried it and found only 9 hits - suprisingly few. A couple of people like 3rd PlanIt, a couple like RR-Track and a couple like the Atlas Right Track System. The latter is free, a big selling point. The 3rd PlanIt comments acknowledge the steep Learning curve (which I would like to avoid). 11:40 am

D. Reflection

8:50 PM I have just finished reading "The Waves" by Virginia Woolf. Although I began reading this without becoming engaged, I began to appreciate the power of the novel and found the last 20 pages particularly powerful. I am glad I stayed with it. I will wait until tomorrow to make a few notes on this.

My session this morning on track planning for model trains was definitely rewarding. I am interested in the software package RR-Track. I haven't had any response on The Gauge to my post asking for comments on it. I will also try posting a message within the LDSIG and see if that gets a reaction.