Consuegra, Spain, the famous "Man of La Mancha" windmills:

We have a bit of history with this site.  You'll notice the castle under construction in the background.  The first time we visited here, 1988, they were just starting the restoration of the castle.  It's a project being done by the local trade school.  So it was really great to go back almost 25 years later to see how much has been done.   You can see the new work in lighter stone.  (They had to rebuild from the middle out, so there's a lot more progress on the inside.)


Weather here is spring, heading to 72 (although that's less than they promised earlier in the week.)  I'll open the house to let it air out.  "Burping the house", apparently the Germans call it.

The farm animals have been painted, so I'll go back to the boxcar kit.  

dave

Quote from: Raymo on March 09, 2026, 07:37:32 PMMy mission started at 10 this morning to go replace the box. Waited over an hour to exchange for a new one. The gentleman next to me was pretty upset with the wait, I told him I was used to it having to deal with the Mass. Registry growing up. After dealing with trying to activate it all afternoon, I tried calling Comcast to hear it was a 45-minute wait to talk to a human. It then took another 45 minutes to text someone to make an appointment for a tech to come by. They'll be here tomorrow between 2 and 4, wish me luck...

Your town doesn't have any alternative to Comcast?  When we moved to Dover, my choices then were Comcast and much slower Consolidated DSL.  I chose the latter, so I didn't have to deal with Comcast.  And I never regretted that decision.  (Then Breezeline, former Atlantic Broadband, came into town.  Lately, I think the successor to Consolidated is now running fiber through town, so we'd have 3 different broadband providers.   Comcast would always be my last choice, I think I'd even deal with Musk's Starlink than Comcast.  Hell, I'd probably go with Morse Code or Carrier Pigeon instead!)

dave

Quote from: PRR Modeler on March 09, 2026, 03:38:51 PMNice job on the animals...no red bull?

No.  I don't have the space to pasture the bull separate from the cows...

dave

Quote from: ReadingBob on March 09, 2026, 02:07:16 PMAfternoon all,

Lunch with the former work crew today. One, who was laid off last year, finally landed a new job after more than half a year of seaching. The majority of the group is happily retired.

Watching "My Cousin Vinny" and pondering if I want to get back to painting details an figures.

Have a great one!

I painted cows today :-)

dave

The matte varnish is drying on the critters:


dave

Quote from: Raymo on March 09, 2026, 10:20:37 AMMorning All. As Dave said the big melt is finally happening here in New England, it's officially "Mud Season". Need to go over one town to get a cable box replaced. It used to be you'd get a new one and it would be plug and play, now you need to download the latest APP. and register the box to get it to work. p I probably should just call the cable co. and have them come do it, but I won't. Enjoy your day..

And of course, that bleeping app exists to spy on you.  Be sure to remove the app as soon as you get the cable box configured.    And the cable company will still have to do 'back end' provisioning of the device.  The 'app' approach fills no functional need in configuring the cable modem.

I always have cable/DSL/fiber routers configured in 'bridge mode', and run my own router/firewall.  I do NOT trust the cheap stuff the ISPs use, and that's before considering the security issues. The trade-off is that, when there's a problem, it's harder for the ISP to diagnose it which usually means I have to talk to 2 or 3 people before I get to the -competent- tech support people to figure out the issue.

dave

Here's a great story from our local newspaper:  https://www.fosters.com/story/news/local/2026/03/09/exeter-nh-pilot-pease-heart-delivery-mission-40-years-ago/89004824007/   A pair of FB-111 and a KC-135 were redirected from a training mission to fly to Oklahoma City, pick up a heart for transplant, and get it to Hartford within 2 hours.    (Recipient lived another 23 years.)


There are stories from railroad history about similar high speed special purpose train runs for various reasons. 

It's sunny, heading to near 60.  Snow has melted from the driveway and the pile at the end of the driveway has lost another foot or two of height.  Even warmer tomorrow, before we get back to more typical March temperatures.

dave

Hong Kong. 2003:


German class today, although half of the people can't make it.  Then a run to the local coffee roaster and back home.  I'll finish the cows and do some work on the boxcar.  I drilled grabiron holes, but I'm not quite sure that went as well as I hoped.

dave

Today I worked on farm animals, painting chickens, pigs and I started on the cows.  (I forgot to prime them earlier.)  We'll see how things look tomorrow once the paint is dried, but so far I'm pretty happy.  Photos tomorrow.

dave

The white paper on the green blotter really make the desk pop through the windows.

dave

So far I've painted chickens and pigs, although the pigs need some touch-up.  When I'm done here, I'll clean up and prime cows...

It's sunny and 60 in SE NH, the ice is almost gone from the driveway and the snow bank pushed up by the plow has lost 2' this weekend.  But that means Mud Season will soon be here.  The dogs will be happy, my female is really upset there's no grass for her to poop on.  She walks around the driveway, gives me a disgusted look, and then reluctantly stops to do her business.  The male hops onto the snow pack, but about every 5 steps he breaks through.  At least he's able to get back onto the driveway, previously he'd break through and start whining "Daddy, come rescue me from the snow!"

dave

Rick has shown photos from the Sedona, AZ area.  I thought I'd chime in:




It stayed well above freezing last night, and the snowpack is definitely reduced.  They're predicting 68 for Tuesday, before returning to more seasonal March temperatures.  After breakfast (brunch), I'll head down and do something in the train room.

dave

Quote from: ReadingBob on March 07, 2026, 01:20:27 PMI'm sitting at the workbench pondering what paints/colors to use to paint several figures.

What I remember when we came back from vacation in India, was how bland and boring everyone's clothing was here....   

I'm contemplating what color to paint chickens. 

dave

What color should I paint my (1890s) chickens?  White?  Brown?

I'm guessing an assortment of colors, ranging from white through tans to reddish brown.

dave

Quote from: Olddude on March 07, 2026, 11:56:35 AMHow the heck do I log out of the forum?
It doesn't have login or log out at the top of the home page or anywhere else.
Thanks
Dacs (Dave)

I don't think you need to log-out, per se.  Just close the browser window.  Depending on your browser, re-opening the window might require you to manually log back in, or the browser might re-enter your username/password for you.

dave