Gender Bending

I recently needed a new set of lopping shears and pruning shears.  We have a lot of shrubbery and trees and it seems that cutting tools juts don't hold up well.

From QVC we just ordered a set of shears.  The ratcheting action of the lopping shears in actual usage seems smooth and efficient.  Now if they hold up for the long haul I will bestow my blessing upon them.

Oh, and as you can see from the image, I just was taken with the purple color.

And along the gender bending meme, Mister Tristan (the 3 year old human being, not the blog) is smitten with his older cousin's purse.  He wants one to play with, so a purse he shall have.

Castaway Caboose, Part 2

On Saturday I promised more details about our excursion on the Castaway Caboose.

The bride and I like to ride on tourist trains.  Well, truth be told, it’s more me than her but she is a good sport about it and actually does enjoy the history and the scenery that is part of the typical tourist train trip.  When I was a kid growing up in Beaver Falls, PA, trains were an intimate part of my kid existence.  There were 3 lines thru town: one on each side of the Beaver River, and another on the bluffs on the west side of town. We spent most of our time down near the river at the ballfield and playground, where the passage of trains was an everyday thing, so common as to be unremarkable.  We played on the tracks, hiked on the tracks, with nary a thought that there was anything different or unusual about it, so I think for me that exploring tourist railroads now is a trip back in time.

Anyway, I digress.  The Durbin and Greenbrier Valley railroad once ran some 100+ miles thru the mountainous heart of eastern West Virginia. Now the tourist excursion runs some 5+ miles out along the Greenbrier River and back, for an approximate 11 mile round trip.  It’s not a long trip by any stretch, but you are right on the banks of the scenic Greenbrier River.  The main draw for us was the overnight stay—they have outfitted 2 cabooses like campers.  They take you out to the end of the line (the tracks beyond 5 miles were wrecked in a 1985 flood and have not been restored), uncouple your caboose, and leave you there until the tourist train comes back the next day.  Whereupon you get coupled back up and return to the station.

The caboose was well equipped and comfortable, with a little kitchen, refrigerator, flush toilet, and even a shower with hot and cold running water.  It sleeps up to 6 using the bench seats along each side of the caboose. I must say that none of us really slept all that well, due to the fact that the beds are not real beds, plus the strangeness of sleeping in a new place.  But the novelty of the caboose more than compensated for that.

Anyway, it was a great little trip with the bride, her parents (dad once worked on the railroad and loved the trip!), Mister Tristan (the 3 year old human being, not the blog), and his cousin Miss Doodybug.  Would definitely do again, and next time stay for 2 nights.

Here is the web site for the train, and another site that explains more of the history.

 

George Carlin, Flamethrowers...and Ultrarunning

A week or so ago (22 June) I missed the birthday of George Carlin.  He was a professional smart ass, which is good work if you can get it.  The bride always says that when she was taking those aptitude tests in high school, she never realized that "smart ass" was a legitimate career choice or she may have taken a different path in life.

Anyway, below I will try to embed a YouTube video of the George Carlin flamethrower routine, but YouTube has been balky for me lately.  If it won't appear below or play just click here for it in a new window.




You should really play the short clip and hear it from George's mouth, but if YouTube is balky, here's what the brillinat George says:

The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.

Wiki tells us that today is the birthday of George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008), who was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.

Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves.

Oh, and the connection to Ultrarunning?  Can you imagine any of us peaceful trail runners, in a sane world, even imagining the use of a flamethrower?  I realize that some of us have spent time in the military and were in situations where such weapons were used, but really? 

I was going to say something like if the world were full of trail runners, there would be no wars.  I happen to believe that, but I think that virtually any circumspective pastime might qualify.  For example, if you substitute the word quilters, you get the same effect.  Or gardeners or birders or cavers or model train enthusiasts or people interested in high-altitude bogs....

I guess if you are a real devotee of some peaceful pursuit, you don't embrace war as a general rule.  Of course, maybe Dick Cheney collected stamps, but  I think you catch my drift.

 
 

Test of YouTune Embed...Please Bear With Me

Please excuse the housekeeping.  This is a test of embedding and publishing a YouTube video.  Below is a George Carlin routine about flame throwers that I have set up to publish on Tuesday @ 6:02 am. 

Note: if you see this YouTube today (Monday ~ 4:37 PM EDT) as part of this test, please go ahead and read the full post when it shows up on Tuesday morning anyway--it contains my thoughts with the link to Ultrarunning.




End of test.

Cats in Art: Annunciation (Rubens)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.

(Sorry this is a day late; life happened)

Image credit here.  Annunication, c. 1628, Peter Paul Rubens, oil on canvas, 119" x 73", held by Rubenshuis (Ruben's House), Antwerp, Belgium.

Zuffi talks about Ruben's joy of painting, his variety of colors, the dynamism of movement, "almost a visual symphony," etc., then gets to the heart of the matter:

...in keeping with its reputation for imperturbability, the cat placidly maintains its siesta, crouched by the sewing basket.

I can only wonder at the near-miraculous ability of the cat to stay cool in the midst of all that art happening around it. 

Castaway Caboose

My whereabouts the past couple days: Durbin, WV.  Just Google “Castaway Caboose.”  One of the coolest things I have ever done.

Will post more on Monday.

 

From Andrew Sullivan's The Dish, a great quote:

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple. It says, 'Raise an army.' It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation. ... Let's just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness, dignity, compassion and respect. Let's be Marines," - Sgt. Maj. Michael Barrett, the top non-commissioned officer of the Marine Corps, on the repeal of DADT.

Enough said.

 

More Ultrarunning at Breezewood at the Abandoned PA Turnpike

(Photo by Gary)

Here's some additional detail about a side run I like along a trail just off (south of) the abandoned Turnpike.  You go up a marked trail called the Railroad Arch Trail, signed along Oregon Road just west of where it crosses under the old Turnpike.  It's a pleasant trail and an easy run on good footing.  After perhaps half a mile all of a sudden you come upon a culvert containing a stream some 10' wide.  The culvert is about 200' long, obviously old and carefully made of cut stone.  It's intact--you can see from end to end and even walk through it if you don't mind wet feet.

Here's the official PA Department of Natural Resources blurb:

The Oregon Road area also includes a stone aqueduct built in the 1880s by masons brought from Sicily for an aborted railroad project. The aqueduct is 15 feet high, 10 feet wide, and 199 feet long and is easily accessible from Oregon Road on Railroad Arch Trail. Built with native stone without mortar, the Sicilian masons created a structure that is as solid today as the day it was built. The South Penn Railroad project also created the nearby tunnels that were used by the PA Turnpike before being abandoned in 1970. The tunnels can be reached by walking the abandoned turnpike, which is open to hiking and biking. A parking lot on Oregon Road is adjacent to the abandoned turnpike.

This culvert is a WAY cool bit of construction...but it is WAY out of place sitting here in the woods, with no clue as to why.

It took a return trip when the leaves were off the trees to figure out this engineering puzzle.  See, this little stream flows down a wide ravine that is pretty much north-south, with the uphill end to the south and the downhill end towards the north (where the abandoned Turnpike is).  The culvert runs parallel to the ravine.  The unfinished South Penn Railroad that once was planned to occupy this route had to cross the ravine at right angles (i.e., east-west).  Rather than build a trestle across, they were going to fill the ravine to build the embankment up to the height of the existing grade...which you can see when the leaves are off  on the ravine's east side.  The grade is above you some 30'? 40'? Maybe even 50', I can't recall.

But basically the culvert, some 200' long, would have been the width of the fill at the base.  The fill would have tapered up like a trapezoid in cross-section, rising the 30' to 50' needed to reach grade level at appropriate railroad track width (maybe 20' or so wide?).

When you climb up and stand at on the east side of the ravine you can look down on the culvert and it all becomes pretty clear.  You can imagine the grade where you are standing extending across the ravine at the same level, which would have been some big fill job.  You can see the culvert that would have been buried in the bottom of the fill to carry the stream under the fill (else you have just a big earthen dam).  You can also follow the old RR grade back east towards the abandoned Sideling Hill tunnel to where it's obliterated by the grading of the Turnpike.

The way this would have been solved today in railroad or highway engineering would be to install a 10' diameter pipe in lieu of all that stone work.  Then just fill over it.  Done.

But I like the stone arch and the forgotten Italian hands that crafted it.