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Saturday November 4, 2006 5:40 am Lethbridge Sunrise 7:25 Sunset 17:05 Hours of daylight: 9:40
A. Morning Musings
5:40 am It is -5 C at the moment with a high of +9 C forecast. Much of the ice is gone. With another day of positive temperatures, the remaining ice, and most of the snow, should melt away.
My daily health routine is very bad at the moment. No exercise plus I am snacking heavily on left over halloween chocolate. Yesterday I forgot to enter my food intake into the FitDay software - I didn't realize this until this morning when I added my two cups of coffee to the file.
B. Plan
Immediate Health Walk & exercise 1 hr Model Trains Paint 6 quad hopper cars 1 hr Continue wiring track for Inner Mainline 1 hr Lubricate diesel locomotive CN 76 1 hr Mathematics Read "Fearless Symmetry" chap 7: quadratic reciprocity 1 hr Continue reading "The Equation that Couldn't be Solved" 1 hr History Continue reading "Marie Antoinette" 1 hr Literature Begin reading "The Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut 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
Philosophy Read "The Art of Living" by Epictetus Mathematics Larson "Calculus" Read "The Computational Beauty of Nature" Chap 3 Gardner "The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles" History Continue reading "Citizens" Watson "Ideas" Model Trains Build oil refinery diorama: add ground cover Assemble second oil platform kit Assembly of CN 5930, an SD40-2 with a NAFTA logo Puzzles The Orange Puzzle Cube: puzzle #9
C. Actual/Notes
8:00 PM This was a good day for the trains. I worked on three different types of activities.
- Painting. I put the first coat of black on the other side of the six 100 ton quad hoppers. This partially covers up the Union Pacific lettering. The second coat will finish the job. I will do that tomorrow morning. Four of the straw bales are now painted and are on the layout. The remaining four received their first coat and they will be finished tomorrow as well.
- Wiring. I completed wiring the Inner Mainline track. I ran a test train on the track and it worked fine. The next step is to place the foam underbed on the layout and nail down the track. Hopefully this will also take place tomorrow.
- Locomotive Maintenance. I removed the shell from CN 76, a small diesel locomotive that showed no signs of life when placed on the track. I noticed a loose wire and soldered it back on. I then lubricated the gears, oiled the motor, and cleaned the wheels. Success. The little engine now works. This is a relatively cheap locomotive and does not perform well at slow speeds which is unfortunate as it should be used as a yard switcher. However it is greased lightening at high speeds. This is the first locomotive that I have taken apart and lubricated. I will have to do this with all of my locomotives. I am not sure what I will end up doing with some of these units. They are older units and may not lend themselves to DCC as their motors may not be capable of smooth operation at the slower speeds appropriate for switching.
As I have noted on a few occasions, one of the attractive features of this hobby is the variety of different activities. In addition to the above, there are also activities associated with:
- scenery construction
- prototypical train operation
- DCC operation
- historical reading
- rolling stock construction
- building constuction
- locomotive maintenance and wiring for DCC.
D. Reflection