Daily Archives: January 11, 2014
See, I’m Not Crazy . . .
As Sheldon says, “My Mother had me tested”
I was up about 8:30 this morning, heading out about 9:30 to pick up our son Chris. On the way I stopped at Jack in the Box for a couple of Supreme Croissants for us to eat on the way. We were on our way into Houston to meet up with Lowell and Landon at the George R. Brown Convention Center for the Great Train Expo model railroad show.
The first shock was that it cost $20 to park at a lot about 6 blocks from the GRB. At least we got a lot of exercise for our money. But it only cost $10 each to get in, and Landon was free.
The show was pretty crowded with every aisle pretty much filled to capacity.
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Landon was fascinated with all the different layouts and themes. And actually, so was PaPa.
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He demanded to be picked up so he could see everything. This rocky ledge, complete with waterfall, was great.
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These blocks of Styrofoam show how many of these hills and mountains start out before being carved into shape.
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The scenery detail was really good.
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Sometimes even the circus comes to town.
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And of course, what’s a countryside without a farm. complete with a irrigation ditch.
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This one even has an RV campground. I mean, isn’t it a law that all RV parks must be located next to railroad tracks?
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This is a Lionel 027 gauge layout like the one I started out with.
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This photo shows that comparative size of the major different scales. The Z Scale boxcar in the foreground is less than 2 inches long. And, not shown here is an even smaller scale, known as T Scale. A T Scale boxcar would be less than 1 inch long!
At some point you’ll have to start using a magnifying glass to operate your train, if things get any smaller.
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The part about not being crazy came about from my inquires about the Lionel train set I received when I was 11. I was never able to find the exact train in any of the old Lionel catalogs. In fact a few years ago, one guy told me I must have imagined it. He hinted that I must be crazy.
But based on something I read r
ecently online, and was finally able to confirm with a vendor today, I figured out what was going on. Large Lionel retailer’s like Sears and Roebuck in my case, were able to order train sets to their own specifications. This is apparently where my train set came from.
So I’m not crazy.
Well, at least I didn’t imagine it.
My train set originally cost about $50. After talking to the vendor, and based on the present day cost of this Santa Fe F3 engine like I had, my train set would be worth over $1500 if I still had it.
Damn!
Notice that steam locomotive below my F3. It now sells for $1450.00.
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This was the part that Landon was waiting for - the Thomas the Tank Engine ride
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While he and Lowell were waiting in line for the train ride, I went shopping and found this neat Glow-in-the-Dark Thomas the Tank Engine T-shirt for him.
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After about two hours it was time to start heading home, but we didn’t manage to get past the food trucks parked across the street at Discovery Green.
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They were having a arts & crafts festival, and a lot of people were out and about on this beautiful day.
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Lowell and Landon got Cupcake Pops, and Chris and I got wraps from another truck. I also got a couple of cupcakes to take home for Jan and I later.
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Running into the usual I-45 construction, it took almost an hour to get back to Chris’ and then another 30 minutes to get back to the rig.
A little later Jan and I headed up to Kemah to have dinner at Hooter’s. We haven’t been for a while, and were happy to see that, probably due to the competition from places like Twin Peaks, Bonedaddy’s, and Buffalo Wild Wings, they’ve added a lot of new menu items, including even hotter sauces. Yumm!
By the time we got back home the sun was going down and I got some good shots of the park here. This is the views out in front of our rig.
Later, about 8 PM, I fixed us Hazelnut Cappuccino K-Cups and we had the Red Velvet and Carrot Cake cupcakes I brought home this afternoon.
A really nice way to end a great day.
Thought for the Day:
A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a to
wel.
The average number of items in the typical woman’s bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.
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