The little Inn by the wayside

[Chroelle]

DONT FORGET THE PIC YOU PROMISED before you pack everything up.

[Railwaymodeler]

Been a bit lax in photographing my railroad lately. Some parts of the system still don't look too good. May or may not ever have this one finished before moving someday.

We're up north right now at the boy scout camp until Monday. Have internet access in the admin offices, so will be online here and there till getting home. Very relaxing here.

[Chroelle]

Had a hell of a day... Today is the last day of school in Denmark and a very relaxing one it is supposed to be. Tonight my workplace have one of their 2 annual parties that are ones-not-to-miss! Unfotunately Molly wasn't informed of the importance of me sleeping to at least 6.30, so she woke up at 5.15 and I had to get up with her. Then we got to work, and the day was starting to chill-ax, and then my coworker said he felt weird and went to lie down. He has had some issues with his heart 2 last years, and he acted weird. Noone thought much about it until he didn't show up to the next class, and he wasn't where he said he would be to lie down. So I was sent running all over the school to see if I could find him - during me running around I tripped and twisted my ancle, and then my phone rang, which made me think of something else, and while running around looking for my friend, I got this call from an old friend who wantd to use my consultant firm to do some webdesign for their homepage, and while my foot was hurting a bit, and I was wondering if I was gonna find my coworker down with a heartcondition (drama!) I had to sound somewhat cool and professional - that was hard. I got past the phone and found my friend - who was sick but not with the heart, and needed to be driven home. I was the only one that could leave and did so. After driving him home, getting back late for lunch and then finding out that we were 2 out of 5 at work in my house and had a big arrangement to take care of - I looked at my coworker (only one there besides me) and we decided to play this one on gut feeling and experience, and did a banging job. We had a great time, and then I got up and walked about... AND ALL OF A SUDDEN I WAS VERY AWARE OF MY FOOT! Now I have been sitting with it elevated for an hour, and with ice on it to hope the swelling falls. I DO NOT WANT TO MISS THE PARTY!
On the other hand I called Tanja and told her about it, and she was not amused, since we are taking over the keys for the house sunday, and we are supposed to be cleaning down wals, floors and everything (oh my - walls and floors and everything). I kind of understand her, but since alcohole is involved tonight I have to say that the only reasonable thing to do is to 1. get drunk 2. forget foot. 3. Worry about the whole thing tomorrow.

I am sure that is the logical grownup thing to do! arty:

[eMTe]

You know, somebody should tell you that your posts are sometimes a bit too lengthy to be fun to read.

But of course we all share your party mood.

[Pater Alf]

How are you doing, Chroelle. Hope you don't have a bad hangover today...

[Chroelle]

I did the sensible thing and drank somewhat much, but included water in between, then drank half a liter of saltwater as I cae home, forced down to pills against headaches, and ate a big solid slice of rye with sausage, which should help with both the salt depravation and soking up some of the alcohol in the stomach.
I felt fine when I woke up, but the wifey next to me that drank 1/3 of what I drank was totally wasted and of no use all day long, so the joke was on her, for being on edge with me when I said I would party. The foot on the other hand acted up until today, so that was kind of a kick in the butt.

Things are coming along great with the house. The whole place was ...in lack of a better word..icky, when w got the key. They had cleaned absolutely nothing in the last 6 months or so. Dustballs was abundant, and spiders were uniting to guard against the intruders. But we jumped in workclothes and went at it right away, and after a lot of hours spent there yesterday and today it is already looking a lot better.

Unfortunately the painter wont be able to start until thursday so that ruins my dream of moving in there in the beginning of next week... But hopefully we are only talking next thursday.

Tanja is away with work wednesday through friday (evening) and so I got a friend to come help with some weed-removal which would make the terrasse (Spelling? Right word?) useable already this weekend, so I am looking forward to surprising her with that.

I better stop now before this gets too lenghty also (:D) but I hpe everyone is enjoying their summer as well. Are any of you going anywhere - I mean further away than the groceryshop...

[Railwaymodeler]

Sounds like a bit of a rollercoaster for you lately, C.

We've been through a bit of a heat wave around here; Looks like tomorrow will be the fourth consecutive day with heat over 100 degrees fahrenheit. That does not take into account the heat index- the "real feel", that accounts for other conditions like humidity (Which is quite high!).

Maria and Skoda have been staying home as much as possible, which means I've been on foot a bit, and taking a minimum of three showers a day because of sweat.

This weekend we are heading North again. Last weekend we were up there. Temperature was about mid-70s most of the time, low humidity, and a gentle breeze mostly. Then we come back here, and it was a total shock.

Sometime in the summer, before too long, we plan to take a nice, long trip, at minimum three weeks, out to Iowa, Nebraska,and Kansas. Lots of great railroad stuff to see, and I have some friends in Kansas I would like to see, that I haven't in a long time. We would likely drive, as we would purposely avoid major cities, and focus on seeing the smaller rail operations (such as industrial locomotives used by grain elevator, oil refineries, and other industries to push train cars around the property). These types of operations generally are the last stand for old locomotives. Extremely few industrial locomotives have been made in the past 40 years; A steel mill not too far from here, uses one from the early 1930s, even! Plus Iowa, once you get away from the major towns, has a lot of small private owner railroads, using equally old equipment.

Best yet, are the electric railroads out there! Back between the early 1900s and the 1940s, much of the midwest was criss-crossed with short electric railroads. Called "interurbans", the idea was to connect two or three towns to larger trunk railroads. Most of these were replaced by diesel buses by the mid-1950s, or the interstate highway system too. Iowa has two that still run. One runs limited passenger service, even! The other one only freight, but both use electric locomotives from the early 1920s. Iowa is a real gem to railfans, but one does have to know where to look for those gems too.

Kansas and Nebraska are similar, but neither boast the variety of small rail operations that Iowa does. Still going to be interesting.

Skoda is not handling tonight well. As it is Independence Day in the USA, there's lots of fireworks out tonight. These scare the cat into hiding, and Skoda gets upset when the cat does not sleep near her. Going to be interesting. At least for now, Loki, the cat, is sleeping in the crib with Skoda - something she started doing lately that makes Skoda real happy! God forbid anything happens to that cat in the next year or two!

[Scythe]

I'll be out of town till Sunday, so don't expect my witty snarkiness to intrude on your peaceful existences till then.

[Chroelle]

Hm....what kind of trouble to make while Scythe is out of town... Perhaps play Laxius Power?
Nah, I will probably be moving stuff, and putting up lamps with the precision nazi (also known as my wife - (I love you honey)) standing behind me and telling me that I missed the perfect spot by half and inch.

[Drasir-Vel]

Hahahaha

[eMTe]

Yeah, they probably have the Laxius Power week in Scythe's town or something.

[Chroelle]

I will most likely be offline from now and until the 25th, unless my cellphones wifi can carry the computers usage in a way that I can tolerate posting. Perhaps it can, so perhaps (most likely I cannot live without internet and will find a solution) we will "see" eachother again sunday.

I am quite looking forward to getting this move underway - so far I packed close to 50 big boxes and god knows how many bags of stuff - and I am currently taking apart furniture. That is actually why I decided to post now and not later - my next project is taking apart the living room table, which means that this was my last chance of typing in a comfortable position. (God I am getting old!)

Oh and Copenhagen (where Scythe lives) would propably be a great host for International Laxius Power week.

[Railwaymodeler]

Some cell phones with a decent data package will allow you to use the phone as a wifi hotspot, so you can wifi connect a computer to the phone, to a cellular internet signal. Some phones also let you use a USB connection to accomplish the same.

Right now Maria, Skoda, and I are at camp up north again, and had a nasty surprise this weekend. Seems that the manager at the bus garage, who is a scoutmaster with the Boy Scouts, decided to come up here for the weekend too. He approached the three of us at the dining hall. Frankly, if looks could kill, Maria would have had him dead ten times over before he'd even hit the floor. She gave him the worst look I'd ever seen! Of course, he tried talking to us, and I told him he would be "Well advised to go to the other dining hall".

We think we will go out to eat tonight. There's a lot of great supper club restaurants in the area. If my dad can go with (He's up here for 12 weeks this summer running the entire camp), we'll treat him to dinner too.

[Zyx]

For the past two weeks, I've lived off the mobile 3g connectivity. First a week in the Åland islands and now I just came back from a weekend's worth of a bachelor's party for a good friend, who's getting married in couple of weeks.

Oh well, tomorrow it's back to work and to normal schedule.

[Scythe]

Yeah, they probably have the Laxius Power week in Scythe's town or something.

They only have a Laxius Prowler week, sorry.

[Chroelle]

Sooo, the house is coming along (probably due to the lack of proper internet and TV).

We got a lot of cleaning and repairs done so far, and it seems we did the right thing buying this. The neighbors are great and have taken well against us. Anna runs out the door to bike around, play with neighboring kids or simply have fun outside, as soon as she is done with her breakfast, which makes me smile everytime, and makes me certain that we did the right thing. I was getting very sick of watching Anna doing nothing but watch TV, as we had nothing else to offer her. Now we do, and she is as happy as I have ever seen her!

Me and Tanja are of course doing house-stuff 24/7 more or less, with lots of repairs, cleaning and measuring stuff. New purchases in furniture, shelves, and household stuff has me wrapped up in a tight little trap that no man has ever fully escaped after a housepurchase. I currently have a list of close to 40 things that needs to be done, but I am working my way through it.

I cannot find a single joint in my body that doesn't ache every morning when I get up, but still I get up with a smile and start on the list, so all in all - everything seems to be pointing to: I DID THE RIGHT THING PURCHASING THIS HOUSE!

I still sometimes find myself thinking though. "I wonder when we will have to leave this summerhouse?", and a second later realise that I am not on vacation.

I wont be reading everything yet, until I get the proper internet, because the cell signal is annoying at times and cuts one of, so dont expect any answers from me, unless they are adressed in here. To top of the annoyance with my phone it has decided to only charge to half the battery and only at half the speed, which means that it has to be connected to the wallsocket at all times to be able to work. So much for the portability of a HTC Desire.... Bad timing!

[Scythe]

The neighbors are great and have taken well against us.

Great Danglish, Chroelle.

[eMTe]

I guess this means you are now in a state of war.

[Chroelle]

That was indeed great DAnglish.

Next chapter of Curlys life without internet and tv resumes now. Feel free to jump in if you missed any of the previous episodes.

Chroelle wakes up. Its a beautiful morning, and he knows that the day has come at last that he has been waiting for some a couple of weeks now. The day when his life finally takes a turn towards normality. So far he has gone to bed aching in his body, and with no means of entertainment to settle down with and recuperate. This day was going to be special. This day, a cable guy was coming to hook him up with fast internet and 34 channels of TV that had been so wildly missed. TV as such during the daytime had not been missed, as the kids was doing great without, which was a great relief to his fatherly-heart. No, the TV that was missed was the chance of sitting down with his wife, after a long day of chores and handyman-work getting done, and just relax. Switch through channels realising that nothing was on, and then deciding what "nothing" to watch.
This day a cable guy was going to end the nights of nothingness, and start a new era of switchable nothingness.

ALAS: The cable guy comes and he is not the man of Chroelles dreams. He is a somewhat gentle but still bearer of bad news kind of cable guy. He tells our hero, that there is no fiber-cable, and nor is there any coaxial cable which the company told both the cable guy and myself that there was. Alas. He tells our somewhat short of breath hero that "Fear not. I will instantaniously order fiber-cable for your humble oboe, so your kids and yourself shall no longer lack the delights of cable tv. I will make it so - in 12-16 weeks."

Our hero drops to his knees, screaming at the sky - "WHY GOD, WHY" he sobs. He tells the cable guy, thanks but no thanks, and goes to dial up other providers. Soon he shall find a new company to deliver him his dreams. He finds it, and calls them. They promise him quick delivery, many a gadget and extra feature, and even a possibility to choose his own landline number (which he will never need). After ordering everything and letting our hero know that everything is gonna be allright our hero gets the confirmation. "Fear no more dear sir. We shall make sure that you lack nothing and that you can once surf the endless waves of the internet at a speed higher than the slow pace of a cellphone wifi-hotspot. We shall hook you up faster than you can say - 15th of august!"

And thus we leave our hero once more on his knees looking to the sky.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

[Railwaymodeler]

Anyone hear of the Megabus accident here in Illinois? I am so glad Maria no longer drives for them. She was extra board, which meant she drove wherever she was needed to, and usually not on a permanent assigned run. Could just as easily been her at the wheel! Second one in the USA in the past year or so, too. So glad she stays at home for Skoda now.

We're heading out with some friends soon, going to dinner. Afterwards, she and I plan a drive to Round Lake, which is about 30 miles from here. Got a lead on a bunch of antique model trains someone wants to sell off, so we're going to check it out tonight.