Friday September 29, 2006 7:00 am Lethbridge Sunrise 7:28 Sunset 19:15 Hours of daylight: 11:47

A. Morning Musings

7:00 am It is +5 C at the moment. The forecast is for a high of + 25 C. The daytime highs remain good for today and tomorrow, then it cools off to the mid-teens.

My weight is steady at 190.

Finishing building the vanity cabinet is my first priority. Given the temperatures I will try to put the undercoat of paint on as well. I should have some time remaining to try laying some temporary track on the model train layout for the mainline yard. I have been doing a little reading about this and am now familiar with terms such as the arriving track, outgoing track and classification tracks. There is a diagram on page 24 of Track Planning for Realistic Operation by John Armstrong that shows some examples of flat yard layouts. This seems like a good place to begin.

B. Plan

Immediate
Health	Walk & exercise	1 hr
Chores	Build new bathroom vanity cabinet	4 hr
Model Trains	Lay ground cover over layout tables	1 hr
	Determine track layout for main classification yard	1 hr
Puzzles	The Orange Puzzle Cube: puzzle #9
Technology	add keywords to iPhoto records	1 hr
Birds	Add September birds to North American data base	1 hr
History	Continue reading "Citizens"	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "The Custodian of Paradise" by Wayne Johnston	1 hr
Later
Chores	Investigate water softeners for home
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

9:45 am The morning is remaining cool, so I have been playing with the track layout arrangement for the main classification yard for my model trains. This had been very enjoyable as it is primarily a conceptual problem of imagining the various scenarios for having a train arrive in the yard, having the locomotive disconnect and return to either the head end of the yard or to a holding area, and then having a switching locomotive move the cars around to form new trains. The switching locomotive should be able to all of its work without entering the mainline. I think I have it. But I will want to have a closer look at it later today. I am eager to actually begin operating this end of the layout. I will be able to have lots of fun here without having the remainder of the layout completed. Great. I now need to focus on the placement of under the track magnets so I will be able to handle all of the switching without having to use a "hand" decoupler.

7:00 PM My estimates for how long it would take to complete the bathroom vanity cabinet turned out to be overly optimistic. I have made a few dado joints using hammer and chisel. It has been a long time since I have done this but I really enjoyed it. I am enjoying the activity and am not in a hurry to complete the job. However I ran into difficulties because I am using 3/4" plywood to replace a 1/2" particle board structure. I now have the drawer brackets installed onto the cabinet vertical walls but I have yet to put this together to verify that it will all work out in the end. Tomorrow I hope to complete the assembly but I am not yet sure whether I will then move it back into the garage for painting or whether I will assemble it in place and then paint it there. Hopefully tomorrow will see the end of the construction phase.

D. Reflection