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Saturday September 23, 2006 6:40 am Lethbridge Sunrise 7:19 Sunset 19:28 Hours of daylight: 12:09
A. Morning Musings
6:40 am It is 0 C at the moment. The forecast is for a high of + 17 C.
B. Plan
I am slow off the starting blocks this morning. Perhaps a cup of tea will help. I will begin the day by seeing if I can transfer the FitDay software from the PC to the Mac.
Immediate Health Walk & exercise 1 hr Model Trains Dismantle previous layout & begin work on tables for new layout 4 hr Puzzles The Orange Puzzle Cube: puzzle #9 Technology add keywords to iPhoto records 2 hr Install FitDay software on Mac 1 hr Purchase MindMapper software for Mac Birds Add August birds to North American data base 2 hr History Continue reading "Citizens" 1 hr Literature Continue reading "All the Men Are Sleeping" 1 hr Read "In Praise of Folly" by Erasmus 1 hr Later Chores Investigate water softeners for home Winterize 5th wheel Put canopy on back of truck Technology Read manual for cell phone Make notes for chap. 4 of "Switching to the Mac" Begin reading "iPhoto" digital photography - learn about using the various manual settings
Literature Read "The Art of Living" by Epictetus Read "The Song of Roland" Mathematics Larson "Calculus" Read "The Computational Beauty of Nature" Chap 3 Gardner "The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles" History Watson "Ideas" Model Trains Build oil refinery diorama: add ground cover Assemble second oil platform kit
C. Actual/Notes
8:25 am I have successfully installed FitDay on the MacBook Pro and have set up a new account for using it with the Windows operating system. I like the way the program keeps track of the calories and plots graphs showing the progress. I have set a goal of getting my weight down to 180 by the middle of November (I am at 193 at the moment). This has been a good way to begin the day.
11:00 am We are back from a 90 minute walk along University Drive. When we returned I had a small container of yogurt which was my first entry in the FitDay file. Once again this is a form of bean counting, but it may also be viewed as a form of feedback control. Now for a little work dismantling my train layout.
4:30 PM This has been a busy afternoon. But the results are impressive, if one likes change and chaos. Here is a schematic diagram of what I hoped to accomplish.
The first step was to remove all of the track, structures and wiring from the old layout. I was surprised that this only took about 2 hours. The next step was to rearrange some of the table tops and underlying framework to correspond with the above diagram. This took about an hour.
But then the fun began. The loop in the bottom right corner of the diagram simply did not fit in the available space (the diameter of a loop is 44"). I tried a totally different arrangement of the tables but was dissatisfied with the result. The breakthrough came when I realized that I didn't need a loop on the right side. The will be the main terminal yard which will work just fine as a one entrance yard. Trains will pull into the yard from the top, then the train will be disassembled and reassembled, and then it will leave by the same track it arrived on. Simple.
I then placed a couple of temporary boards to simulate the visual barriers to give myself a sense of what it might look like. I am pleased with it so far. I have added a small section of track from the top right corner of the oval loop that will go through the visual barrier and then into the town ( Queenston) from the right. Thus I will be able to enter and leave the town from either end.
I still have a fair amount of construction work to get the table tops and framework cut to size and fastened properly. Once that is done, I anticipate a fairly short time to lay the mainline track.
Here are a few images of the situation at the moment.
I have mentally run a number of imaginary trains on this layout and it looks like it will be a genuine improvement over the earlier layout. Once again, the critical difference is that I can now walk all around the layout without having to duck-under any of the tables. The addition of visual barriers is a new idea for me, but I think it will work rather well.
I am quite excited about the improvements and am eager to get the "ground prepared" so I can begin laying track.
D. Reflection