The little Inn by the wayside

[Railwaymodeler]

Well, was sick all weekend, from Friday afternoon on. Ended up having Maria and Skoda spend the weekend at Maria's mom's house. Don't want either of them sick. Then Saturday night, one of the hard drives in my laptop randomly failed. I have two SATA drives, it was the primary one with Windows installed. At least most important docs were backed up to the second drive. Still had to put another hard drive in. The failed drive was a 160 GB, and has been replaced by a 500GB. The secondary is a 320GB, so total I've got over 3/4 of a terabyte.

Now, what to do with this space???

[Master_X]

Download loads of crap and never use it again. Such as movies, games, books. Things like these. Even though my shitty PC has a total space of about 200 GB It's still too much for me. And you have just over 4/5 of a TB

[Chroelle]

Well I have 1 ½ TB's on my old desktop-PC, and I never deleted anything because I kept thinking - why should I, when I dont need the room... But then one day I asked it to defragment....

I kind of fell of the planet recently, because we went through a massive emotional rollercoaster in our little household. We found a more or less perfect house and asked our bank-counsellor to look into wether we could afford it. Most of the time these last years we lived very "IKEA-ish" and we decided we wanted something with personality. What we found was located perfectly, a cosy farmhouse from 1770 has been split up into doublehouses, and the smallest of these was perfect for us. In the remaining 4 houses lives childrenfamilies with kids the same ages as my two girls, and their parents are close to our age, so that was also a plus. In the middle between the 3 houses that makes the farm is a lawn with a playhouse and room for soccer. The house itself is done over in 1988 by an architectural group that made lots of fun corners, roundings and such in the house. There is lots of personality to this house, so we were crossing fingers. Our bank-woman told us that she was busy at the moment, so it would take some time, but she would have one of her co-workers look into it and then she would look it over afterwards. 4 days later (last thursday) we got an email from the coworker telling us that he could easily see this being an option, and we would be ableto afford it. Tanja bought a good wine and some steaks for the night after to celebrate, but 30 mins before dinner, we got an email from our bankwoman saying that she couldn't see it being an option for us, and that we couldn't afford it...Holy crap - talk about a waste of good wine and steaks...!
We had a horrible weekend, and then when we looked her calculations over it was filled with mistakes and miscalculations. This is not the first time she has done this, so we decided to look for another bank, and yesterday they said YES to us bidding on the house.
And we did look over their calculations and everything looks good!

So more ups and downs than the Himalayas!

[eMTe]

Sounds great. A friend from work lives with her husband and daughter in a similar neighbourhood and loves it. The only difference is that they don't have separate houses, but all 4 families together live in a refurbished old building, once belonging to state company. So they have one entrance, like in block, but since the building is situated in remote area and there's also huge playground for kids around and there are only 4 families they don't actually feel like living in flats.

So good luck!

[Railwaymodeler]

Its my birthday today, and only in my shop briefly. Maria and I are going to dinner tonight. Of course, Skoda is coming along too.

I know this little Italian restaurant in Chicago, a little ways south of the downtown loop area. Wonderful food, and they have a small dining room upstairs too, that the open on request.

It's a very small place, generally quiet. The kind of restaurant that has the best food, but no one notices its there, but hear of it by word of mouth. Maria and I went there a few times back when we were dating. Very intimate environment. Going to have them turn the lights low, and light the candles on the table.

At the shop only briefly today, and tomorrow she and I head north again till Sunday night!

[Scythe]

Well, happy birthday then!

[eMTe]

Of course we remember it's your birthday. You dont think we forgot, do you?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!

[Pater Alf]

Of course we would never forget it...

Happy Birthday, Raillo!!!

[Maz]

Happy belated Railo =)

and for the sake of the Railo's and certain someone's birthdays - beers are on me in this bar today =)

[Tormuse]

Happy Belated Birthday, RWM! Sounds like you had a really nice evening!

And congrats to you, Chroelle, on getting what sounds like a really nice house!

[Chroelle]

Haven't gotten it yet Tormuse, but getting VERY close. Most likely signing tuesday.

CONGRATS and to you Raillo and "a certain someone" that was quite a mystery to me! Got a name for him yet?

And Raillo - I love making romantic dates for me and the wife too. We are going to a hotel next weekend to celebrate our 3rd anniversary (of marriage - we have been together for 10 years this september) and I have planned a romantic picnic and a small boattrip on a nearby lake. I hope we will be able to just kick back and enjoy and not talk about the papers that needs to be signed, lawyermeetings and bank-deals...

[eMTe]

Indeed, HAPPY BIG RED WRITING to the boy.

we have been together for 10 years this september

Wow. Ill reach that status in my fourties. I hope.

[Chroelle]

I was just looking over the webcomic that is advertising in our PW-ads - Basic. That is pure nerdgasm so far: http://www.basiccomic.com/
I wont reveal anything to you, but you can read up in 5-6 minutes if you want.

And yes 10 years is a long time, but we both are happy that we had a life of our own, and serious relationsships before we met eachother. That makes sure that you dont think "what if" all the time, so getting to the high numbrs early might not be all good. Come to think of it. I believe me and Tanja just hooked up shortly before I joined OG.

[Railwaymodeler]

Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone. Maria and I had a great time in Chicago. Plus, after dinner, we drove down to the south approach tracks and coach yard for Union Station. Amtrak turned 40 last year, and they still have some specially painted locomotives running around the system. Didn't see any of them, but there was a bunch of old luxury streamline cars from the 1940s and 1950s around. Amtrak is nowadays allowing private tour companies to attach cars to the back of their trains. A number of the cars can usually be seen around Chicago. Mostly the more common styles, but we recognized one as being a dome-coach (Has a bubble dome on top for viewing the scenery, but second class coach seating on the main floor - most dome cars were extra fare first class stuff, so this is uncommon). The lighting was rather poor and we could not close enough for a good picture, so we didn't even try to get one.

We're actually thinking of chartering one of these cars and taking a "land cruise", something that is becoming popular with well-to-do folks now. Amounts to touring the country in a private train car. Best part is, most freight railroads will carry your coach too, on the back of a freight train even, so you can ride routes that otherwise don't carry passengers anymore. We are considering going all-out, and chartering not only a private coach, but a private train altogether! Locomotive and a couple cars! We figure it will cost about $100,000 or more to do it the way we want to, but will be worth it! On the other hand, with my friends at the various railroad companies, I may get a break, and maybe get someone to loan or lease very cheap, an old locomotive. I used to have an engineer's certification, back when I was younger, as I would volunteer at a railroad museum and operate trains there. If I go get re-certified, I could probably even run our chartered train!


Outside of all that, Maria and I were up north for a few days again, made another offer on the house we want. The first offer fell through, as a code inspector came out and failed the house. Turned out there was nothing wrong. The inspector saw what appeared to be a large crack in the foundation. Ended up that it was not a crack at all. The inspector viewed the basement under dim lighting, and mistook a child's doodling in black marker on the concrete, as a crack! Had the inspector looked closely, he would have seen this, too! No one was happy about this.

June is coming: June 21 is Maria's 35th birthday, and she is thinking about what she wants to do that day. The 16th, however, is our "Day of infamy". Last year on that day, she was wrongfully beaten to the ground by police, handcuffed and manhandled, then taken to jail for something she did not do. Was the day the bus management finally stepped over the line and pulled the dumbest stunt imaginable: asking a driver that was buddies with the management, to call the police if Maria or I were spotted. Maria had spent her birthday in jail, but was released a couple days after that. The newspapers had articles about it, the hispanic chamber of commerce as well as other hispanic groups, boycotted Pace for a couple months, the police and public were outraged when the truth was known, it was an absolute mess!

So the 16th of next month, we plan a quiet day to ourselves.

As for tonight, can't sleep - back hurting badly, and Skoda is cranky. Hot and humid outside. So with Skoda and I unable to sleep, neither can Maria!

[Chroelle]

Leasing your own train... I can only imagine the 10-year old Raillo looking through a space-time-continuum loophole (stuff) and dropping his jaw!

[Zyx]

Leasing your own train... I can only imagine the 10-year old Raillo looking through a space-time-continuum loophole (stuff) and dropping his jaw!

Well, at least 30-year old Zyx dropped his jaw.

[Railwaymodeler]

Really, it is not so far fetched as someone might think. In downtown Chicago, various organizations often charter their own L train (Electric rapid transit). Often it is by rail fan groups, but some also charter them for weddings or family events. The idea usually is to joyride the system, not adhering to any specific route or schedule.

I've also been told of a high school in a far west Chicago suburb, that chartered out old (by the 1960s standards) passenger cars, including a number of empty baggage cars, for a "Prom on Rails", where the senior prom was held on a train! Each baggage car served as a dance floor (They would be about 70 feet long, and 10 feet wide), each with a different band at one end. My own take of "prom on rails", was volunteering at a railroad museum during my school's prom. Both junior and senior proms were spent operating a diesel locomotive. Actually, for both years, that was also the day a number of Boy Scout troops came out to learn about trains, and I would guide and teach the kids all around the museum!

Maria and I now need to agree on what kind of train to use. She wants an old steam train, but I want a streamlined diesel train.

Oh, and closer to CWF, I downloaded a bunch of games recently - Bernard & Hank (Both of them), Bowling Blast, SuperTux Cart, and a few others. Just loving Bernard & Hank!

[Railwaymodeler]

June 11. Maria and I are going to downtown Chicago for round two of stopping the evildoers at Pace.

This time, we are to be there to testify in a class-action suit against the garage management. A number of other drivers who have been wronged by the management, have their own suit that goes before a judge that day. As before, Pace has opted to not have a trial by jury. This is probably for the same reason, too: Public opinion of them on the whole is so incredibly low after the media caught on, that an impartial jury would be near-impossible to find. I am also told that ridership has plummeted over the past year.

Maria is not a part of this suit, but is there to give testimony as a witness. I am there to give testimony as well. One of the drivers that was wrongfully fired, I had a big part in helping her get brought back. I was on her bus when an event that never happened, was supposed to have. A written statement by me was what the union needed to investigate closer and fight for her job.

The State of Illinois is also assembling a criminal trial for the management of the garage. What they did to Maria alone, is enough to be a serious felony, punishable by years in prison. More findings will bring more serious charges too.

All in all, I am anxious for these evildoers to be finally defeated, so Maria, Skoda, and I can get out of here and never look back. Someday, when Skoda is older, it will make a good series of bedtime stories, much as David and Goliath. I've also said it would make a good book and movie!

[Zyx]

I've also said it would make a good book and movie!

Not to mention a freeware game.

[Railwaymodeler]

I've also said it would make a good book and movie!

Not to mention a freeware game.

That might be interesting. Wonder how it would work though? Maybe a puzzle type game, where one must solve mysteries or do some task to proceed to the next level, or the game could take a few liberties, and a Super Mario Bros clone could be made. I could just imagine: Maria is trapped in the bus garage with the manager (Bowser). Steve (My real name), must play Mario and go through various levels to rescue her!