I have to unload so bear with me. I'll have my tantrum, stomp and hold my breath and then be over it. Easily offended readers may want to take this opportunity to surf randomly for the duration...
Since I do occasionally read something other than blogs, I really am aware that we're in the midst of the quadrennial political circus/spending spree that somehow elects a President of these semi-United States. After blowing more money than the GDP of a medium-sized country, it's pretty sure that one of the candidates will either stay or move into the White House and we can all get back to arguing over who's at fault for everything. Congress can revert to glaring at each other across the aisle and accomplishing nothing just like the last couple of years and all the bureaucracy will be content. Of this much I'm certain so...
If I might just take a moment out of my usually non-partisan blog time to let all my acquaintances, Facebookers, passersby, email forwarders, spammers, pollsters, unknown phone callers and everyone else who is so wildly determined to influence my vote in said elections know...you're too late.
Sorry to shatter your hopes and dreams, but I already have a decision made regarding who's going to be blessed with my one, solitary little piece of the Democracy pie. Not only do I know, but I'll have an absentee ballot filled out ahead of time to make sure that candidate recieves that vote. Hence, you're only burning up your phone minutes, postage, bandwidth and my inbox space with dire warnings and hyperventilated 'news' of either red or blue tint. Really...I've thought about it a lot and if you're that interested, I might even let you in on the how and the why of it all but since politics makes for awful dinner and locomotive cab conversation, you'll have to come looking and be prepared to not like what you hear.
One thing I know for sure about me (and there aren't that many sure things) is that I'm an opinionated SOB. Just ask Chris about that single-minded streak that drives her so crazy sometimes. For that reason, I'm a tough sell politically and therefore it's highly unlikely that I'll change my mind based on a Facebook or email forward no matter which way it slants. I'm tickled to have an intelligent conversation regarding politics and happy to engage in occasional sparring over things Federal, State and Local but I'm not much interested in conspiracy theories or predictions of our imminent downfall.
You might have surmised by now that I've had an unusually large amount of junk hit me lately. Yep, I've been informed in the last week or so that "only 'True Americans' will forward this"; "the 'mainstream media' won't report that"; and if we don't do something RIGHT NOW...like sign a meaningless email petition, God will punish us and our progeny forever. Right after the aliens land and the Long Count runs down. What? And could someone...anyone please tell me why I should care one whit about what Trump thinks? Frankly, I'm weary and my trash folder runneth over.
Particularly fast-laned into my spam-dumpster is the stuff that comes in with 57 prior email headers still attached and the message body in 6 different fonts, usually all-caps (see above). These are instantly zapped unread. I know that I'm rolling the dice here but in all honesty, I can't see that any national crisis has been precipitated nor has any body part ever fallen off or my luck changed due to my refusal to forward this crap to 'everyone I care about' on my email list. I really love hearing from people I don't see all the time (which is almost everybody these days) but send me something about you, not about a political party.
Likewise, 800 number "polls" with a PAC pitch go to my answering machine unless I feel like entertaining myself by talking nonsense to the the English-as-a-third-language operator as long as possible in order to run up their phone bill. As you can see, I'm easily amused sometimes.
But enough of this. The beauty of owning a blog is you get to say whatever you want when the mood strikes you and then moving on...in that, mission accomplished for today. I'll climb down off the box until the next attack of grouchiness but until then...if we could just take a breather from posting the latest news of Newt's laughable moral standards, Mitt's equally hilarious concern for anyone not listed on Forbes, the laundry list of Barack's latest conspiracies; along with any and all Internet rumors and anything remotely connected to AM radio, I'll be ever so much happier.
We now return to our irregular programming. Thank you for your patience.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
On The Road Again...
So yeah...I'm on a road train once again. A couple of weeks into it and I've already lost track of what day it is. Suddenly I'm watching the train line-ups and going to bed early, trying to grab some sleep before the midnight hour; like I've done so many times before. Almost without fail, Crew Management will jingle the phone at an odd time and away we go again. The dogs look at me like I've lost my mind when I get up and let them out at three in the morning after another early call. They woof to come in about the time the coffee is done and usually re-crash somewhere by the time I get my thermos loaded, give Chris a smooch that she won't remember and roll my little truck out the driveway. Suddenly, time seems a bit scarce when I have to keep one eye on the clock and listen for the phone. The Home suffers.
I was almost getting used to having a regular show-up time and weekends off like most people in the real world. What a concept...knowing when and where you're going to work. It's been a long time since I did anything remotely like that. About 15 years to be exact. There was a little while along the way in the last couple of months when I had my cell phone set to only ring as an alarm clock and I even had my night-stand phone unplugged but I knew it couldn't last. My work-train temporary home was abolished for the winter and so here I am, rolling along behind the headlights and wailing away at the crossings again.
A few months on those local jobs and I just about convinced myself to forget what the long-haul grind was like. Wee-hour phone calls from the little automated voice at CMC; drives to work in the pre-dawn dark; crummy mini-mart food and burning eyeballs from too little sleep. Sometimes it seemed like I'd been doing this all my life and the merry-go-round just kept on spinning. It gets old.
Having said that though, I guess I really am a mileage guy most of the time. After a few trips, I remembered why I tend to like the road. Yes, you run the same track over and over but the scenery is always changing and sometimes dawn through a windshield is absolutely spectacular. Besides, I'm probably lucky in that I still actually like what I do...the nonsense that goes with it I could live without but running a train from A to B and back just seems to suit me. Good thing because I've got a long way to go before I can throw out my rulebook and call it a career. Years of living out of a grip and trudging off to work when everyone else is sleeping seems like some form of normal to me most of the time. I've done this so long that I fell right back into the groove after the work train ended. It'll take a while to get used to not having the same day off from one week to the next but for now, this'll have to do.
It'll make everything a bit of a challenge for a while...till the next regular job comes along anyway. Till then I'll fumble along like always...maybe even a bike ride now and again in between trips and snow flurries. The Wayward Home might get a little neglected but just like the real home, I always find my way back sometime. No matter how far I go or where the rails lead, it's always good to be back.
I was almost getting used to having a regular show-up time and weekends off like most people in the real world. What a concept...knowing when and where you're going to work. It's been a long time since I did anything remotely like that. About 15 years to be exact. There was a little while along the way in the last couple of months when I had my cell phone set to only ring as an alarm clock and I even had my night-stand phone unplugged but I knew it couldn't last. My work-train temporary home was abolished for the winter and so here I am, rolling along behind the headlights and wailing away at the crossings again.
A few months on those local jobs and I just about convinced myself to forget what the long-haul grind was like. Wee-hour phone calls from the little automated voice at CMC; drives to work in the pre-dawn dark; crummy mini-mart food and burning eyeballs from too little sleep. Sometimes it seemed like I'd been doing this all my life and the merry-go-round just kept on spinning. It gets old.
Having said that though, I guess I really am a mileage guy most of the time. After a few trips, I remembered why I tend to like the road. Yes, you run the same track over and over but the scenery is always changing and sometimes dawn through a windshield is absolutely spectacular. Besides, I'm probably lucky in that I still actually like what I do...the nonsense that goes with it I could live without but running a train from A to B and back just seems to suit me. Good thing because I've got a long way to go before I can throw out my rulebook and call it a career. Years of living out of a grip and trudging off to work when everyone else is sleeping seems like some form of normal to me most of the time. I've done this so long that I fell right back into the groove after the work train ended. It'll take a while to get used to not having the same day off from one week to the next but for now, this'll have to do.
It'll make everything a bit of a challenge for a while...till the next regular job comes along anyway. Till then I'll fumble along like always...maybe even a bike ride now and again in between trips and snow flurries. The Wayward Home might get a little neglected but just like the real home, I always find my way back sometime. No matter how far I go or where the rails lead, it's always good to be back.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Angry Man
It's been one of those weeks. I haven't been around here for a bit but that in itself isn't really unusual. I'm an intermittent kind of blogger anyway, which is why I still have my day job. This time though, it's frustration setting in that's brought about my tardiness. Specifically, I'm not very happy with technology lately. To whit:
First on the technology frustration list, the railroad. They went through a massive system upgrade over the holiday which is probably a good thing since half their stuff still looks like DOS and navigates with the tab key. I have visions of card readers and a long-ago FORTRAN course in high school every time I look at it. It's great to search endless screens when you're on overtime but it gets a little old when it takes 15 screens to tell the mechanical guys that your engine is low on oil. I hoped greatly for a move away from that old 'F5 to update' routine and a move into the point-and-click world that we all know and love. If wishes were fishes...
This process at least was well-known and anticipated but somewhere in the change-over, when they switched all the coding on my direct-deposit and sent my paycheck on a journey to another dimension, the drawbacks became readily apparent. We knew we would be unable to make changes to our personal information for the duration but when they did it for me and the electronic payments started bouncing, things got little dicey.
The real entertainment value of all this began when the bank (evil, greedy, unscrupulous, etc.) decided to ignore the fact that none of the usual transfers had been made and went ahead with automatic payments despite the fairly obvious problem (at least to me) of a zero balance in the account. They made payments with money they didn't have which put us in the negative and to reinforce the error of our ways, charged us an enormous fee. That was really fun so they did it again only this time with a less-than-zero balance and slapped on another fee. It continued to be good for them so they did it again...and again. This merry-go-round continued until Chris got is turned off just as the fees topped a grand. I almost think it would have been fun to just let it keep going until we owed them the national debt on a checking account that rarely has very much in it. I wonder how long the computers would keep bouncing it back and forth before an amount field somewhere ran out of zeros.
I guess that's how you really make money in America these days...charge endless fees for a screwed up service until you bleed your customers to death. What a concept. Banks, branches of government and airlines have elevated this to an art-form. Unfortunately, I also seem to remember a biology class that defined an unsuccessful parasite as one that killed its host. I don't see how this can be a long-term strategy. There's this old saying about getting blood from a turnip that might apply...
But again, I digress.
After lengthy and somewhat heated discussions with a hard-to-find, real-live person, Chris talked the 'full-service' bank into waiving all but the first set of charges. That was good until their computer got involved and slapped most of them right back on again. More calls. I think the dust has finally settled but I'm still not exactly sure what happened to the account codes...
Next on the list...I use a site called MapMyRide to keep tabs on my biking mileage, plot routes and track my gear. If you've been around here long, you've seen the routes in assorted blog posts and links. I've always found it useful and relatively easy to work with; glitchy and loaded with ads sometimes but fairly easy, especially considering it's free. Unless you want to pay to get rid of the advertising, they don't charge to save all those bytes for me and so I was content. So far, so good. I have a zillion miles of rides saved on it and even when they split the thing into two parallel sites, it worked. Right up until New Years Day...
Suddenly, half it's functions ceased and desisted and I couldn't save anything. I tried to use it for a week to do the same old, same old stuff I've been doing for years and eventually found after numerous emails that it now probably will require Chrome or Safari to make it work. Thanks for letting me know.
Yep, I should just roll with it and upgrade. Everything will probably work better anyway if I Chrome it but MMR ticked me off when it just stopped working. I had to go looking for the answer when a simple note on the header would have sufficed to give me a heads-up. Note to IT...it might be good to let somebody know when you make changes that affect millions of users of dirt-common browsers.
OK I admit it, I know I'm a dinosaur and still have Explorer but it's been chugging along just fine. Like me, it's old and creaky but still manages to work every day. Slowly but surely.
This morning, on a whim I tried MMR again and everything worked as intended once more. I never changed anything. Go figure. Now I can shut up and be happy...or at least shut up and quit spamming their Facebook page. I'll probably download another browser anyway but the whole ceremony kind of left me unimpressed. I know sites go through development and things evolve faster than GOP sound bites but it seems like a convoluted process engineered and guaranteed to piss me off.
So, next up on my test of patience list is a site with the catchy name 'Blurb' that promised the ability to vacuum a blog right out of space and into book form. Cool. Alledgedly, you can manipulate text, photos, links and whatever else you have stashed in your blog into a bestseller before lunch. Well, maybe not the bestseller part but you supposedly can turn what exists only in electronic form into a hard-copy that will fit nicely on the coffee table or back of the toilet tank. I had visions of 'The Wayward Home' printed up on glossy paper looking all spiffy and professional. Oh and by the way, you do have to pay for anything that actually prints so this one ain't a freebie. It all sounds easy enough for even the rankest amateur to work with and so I downloaded the software. I watched the slick tutorial video and prepared to launch into publishing.
The fly in the ointment was that I never even got the thing to log on to the 'Home' to start the process, much less do all the other wondrous stuff trumpeted in the 'abouts'. My publishing career is off to a rough start. Two days worth of emails to assorted tech people finally collapsed in frustration when Blogger refused all efforts to open up and say ahhhh. Despite a heroic effort on the part of their tech help people, all was in vain and I came up against my limit when they wanted me to open a new email account just for that site. I know Google wants to rule the universe but requiring a new Gmail address for every different site seems a little much. I wasted half the day trying various fixes (which weren't really fixes because the settings they wanted changed were the defaults anyway) to no avail and finally uninstalled the miserable wretch without any print forthcoming. No sale. Another note to IT...if you say it works with Blogger, it might be helpful for us who will be paying the bills to make sure that it really does.
And so, lacking much progress elsewhere I'm doing what I suspect may actually work...tapping away at the 'Home' and with any luck, the 'Save Now' button actually will and 'Publish Post' won't be just kidding. Note: Other than losing two paragraphs that I had to re-do somewhere between 'Preview' and that 'Publish' button, it did. I'm going to trade my laptop in for a fountain pen.
My kids may eventually lead me kicking and screaming into the future but for now, I'm stuck right here. Hey, it isn't all bad news...I managed to get the disk drawer open on the X-Box without even looking at the start-up guide. There may be hope after all.
First on the technology frustration list, the railroad. They went through a massive system upgrade over the holiday which is probably a good thing since half their stuff still looks like DOS and navigates with the tab key. I have visions of card readers and a long-ago FORTRAN course in high school every time I look at it. It's great to search endless screens when you're on overtime but it gets a little old when it takes 15 screens to tell the mechanical guys that your engine is low on oil. I hoped greatly for a move away from that old 'F5 to update' routine and a move into the point-and-click world that we all know and love. If wishes were fishes...
This process at least was well-known and anticipated but somewhere in the change-over, when they switched all the coding on my direct-deposit and sent my paycheck on a journey to another dimension, the drawbacks became readily apparent. We knew we would be unable to make changes to our personal information for the duration but when they did it for me and the electronic payments started bouncing, things got little dicey.
The real entertainment value of all this began when the bank (evil, greedy, unscrupulous, etc.) decided to ignore the fact that none of the usual transfers had been made and went ahead with automatic payments despite the fairly obvious problem (at least to me) of a zero balance in the account. They made payments with money they didn't have which put us in the negative and to reinforce the error of our ways, charged us an enormous fee. That was really fun so they did it again only this time with a less-than-zero balance and slapped on another fee. It continued to be good for them so they did it again...and again. This merry-go-round continued until Chris got is turned off just as the fees topped a grand. I almost think it would have been fun to just let it keep going until we owed them the national debt on a checking account that rarely has very much in it. I wonder how long the computers would keep bouncing it back and forth before an amount field somewhere ran out of zeros.
I guess that's how you really make money in America these days...charge endless fees for a screwed up service until you bleed your customers to death. What a concept. Banks, branches of government and airlines have elevated this to an art-form. Unfortunately, I also seem to remember a biology class that defined an unsuccessful parasite as one that killed its host. I don't see how this can be a long-term strategy. There's this old saying about getting blood from a turnip that might apply...
But again, I digress.
After lengthy and somewhat heated discussions with a hard-to-find, real-live person, Chris talked the 'full-service' bank into waiving all but the first set of charges. That was good until their computer got involved and slapped most of them right back on again. More calls. I think the dust has finally settled but I'm still not exactly sure what happened to the account codes...
Next on the list...I use a site called MapMyRide to keep tabs on my biking mileage, plot routes and track my gear. If you've been around here long, you've seen the routes in assorted blog posts and links. I've always found it useful and relatively easy to work with; glitchy and loaded with ads sometimes but fairly easy, especially considering it's free. Unless you want to pay to get rid of the advertising, they don't charge to save all those bytes for me and so I was content. So far, so good. I have a zillion miles of rides saved on it and even when they split the thing into two parallel sites, it worked. Right up until New Years Day...
Suddenly, half it's functions ceased and desisted and I couldn't save anything. I tried to use it for a week to do the same old, same old stuff I've been doing for years and eventually found after numerous emails that it now probably will require Chrome or Safari to make it work. Thanks for letting me know.
Yep, I should just roll with it and upgrade. Everything will probably work better anyway if I Chrome it but MMR ticked me off when it just stopped working. I had to go looking for the answer when a simple note on the header would have sufficed to give me a heads-up. Note to IT...it might be good to let somebody know when you make changes that affect millions of users of dirt-common browsers.
OK I admit it, I know I'm a dinosaur and still have Explorer but it's been chugging along just fine. Like me, it's old and creaky but still manages to work every day. Slowly but surely.
This morning, on a whim I tried MMR again and everything worked as intended once more. I never changed anything. Go figure. Now I can shut up and be happy...or at least shut up and quit spamming their Facebook page. I'll probably download another browser anyway but the whole ceremony kind of left me unimpressed. I know sites go through development and things evolve faster than GOP sound bites but it seems like a convoluted process engineered and guaranteed to piss me off.
So, next up on my test of patience list is a site with the catchy name 'Blurb' that promised the ability to vacuum a blog right out of space and into book form. Cool. Alledgedly, you can manipulate text, photos, links and whatever else you have stashed in your blog into a bestseller before lunch. Well, maybe not the bestseller part but you supposedly can turn what exists only in electronic form into a hard-copy that will fit nicely on the coffee table or back of the toilet tank. I had visions of 'The Wayward Home' printed up on glossy paper looking all spiffy and professional. Oh and by the way, you do have to pay for anything that actually prints so this one ain't a freebie. It all sounds easy enough for even the rankest amateur to work with and so I downloaded the software. I watched the slick tutorial video and prepared to launch into publishing.
The fly in the ointment was that I never even got the thing to log on to the 'Home' to start the process, much less do all the other wondrous stuff trumpeted in the 'abouts'. My publishing career is off to a rough start. Two days worth of emails to assorted tech people finally collapsed in frustration when Blogger refused all efforts to open up and say ahhhh. Despite a heroic effort on the part of their tech help people, all was in vain and I came up against my limit when they wanted me to open a new email account just for that site. I know Google wants to rule the universe but requiring a new Gmail address for every different site seems a little much. I wasted half the day trying various fixes (which weren't really fixes because the settings they wanted changed were the defaults anyway) to no avail and finally uninstalled the miserable wretch without any print forthcoming. No sale. Another note to IT...if you say it works with Blogger, it might be helpful for us who will be paying the bills to make sure that it really does.
And so, lacking much progress elsewhere I'm doing what I suspect may actually work...tapping away at the 'Home' and with any luck, the 'Save Now' button actually will and 'Publish Post' won't be just kidding. Note: Other than losing two paragraphs that I had to re-do somewhere between 'Preview' and that 'Publish' button, it did. I'm going to trade my laptop in for a fountain pen.
My kids may eventually lead me kicking and screaming into the future but for now, I'm stuck right here. Hey, it isn't all bad news...I managed to get the disk drawer open on the X-Box without even looking at the start-up guide. There may be hope after all.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Quote of the Day
Speaking of reading...I had a flashback the other day to a short story I read many years ago. I'd forgotten all about it but something hit the right button and an old quote popped back into my head from wherever I had it tucked away. Like "Fate...", it's not exactly a classic...but it sank it's hooks into the old gray matter somewhere and just stayed for the ride. There's a lot of that rusty junk kicking around behind my baby blues...someday I'll have to have a yard sale and dust out the cobwebs. 'Till then, here's to Helen America and Mr. Grey-no-more...somehow they're a part of how everything turned out and where it's all headed.
"She saw in him a young bachelor, prematurely old. A man whose love had been given to emptiness and horror, not the tangible rewards and disappointments of human life. He had had all space for his mistress, and space had used him harshly. Still young, he was old; already old, he was young."
Cordwainer Smith
-The Lady Who Sailed "The Soul"-
"She saw in him a young bachelor, prematurely old. A man whose love had been given to emptiness and horror, not the tangible rewards and disappointments of human life. He had had all space for his mistress, and space had used him harshly. Still young, he was old; already old, he was young."
Cordwainer Smith
-The Lady Who Sailed "The Soul"-
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
On Fate (is the Hunter)
After that lengthy hiatus on Office Train posts, it's back to reality and business as usual (or as usual as it ever gets) at the Wayward Home. As I so often say when I ease the throttle out on another trip...here we go again.
Believe it or not...I read more than I write and sometimes I actually have a minute or three to do that very thing. My favorite book is still a less-than-well-known autobiography called " Fate is the Hunter "and my old softcover copy is now very faded and dog-eared from being read over and over. It's the memoir of an airline and transport pilot who flew in the early days of commercial aviation, beginning before World War II and on into the '50s. Ernest K. Gann, I know is not a literary giant in the sense of a Dickens or a Tolstoy but his story suits me just the same. As a much-loved book should, it speaks to me and makes me think. So what if it isn't a 'classic'...
I'm not much of a highbrow type anyway I guess. I chewed my way through "The Inferno" a while back, mostly just to say I had. Talk about a workout. "Moby Dick" was a tough go as well. It turned out I actually liked it but I had to work pretty hard to digest that many chapters and it's not the kind of thing I can just pick it up and read a few paragraphs of before I pull the covers up and call it a day.
I often do exactly that with "Fate"; find it on the nightstand or pick it off the floor where I dropped it last time, open it to a random page and start in. It's like a comfortable old chair where I can spend some time and fall asleep with the light on. There's no famous, epic lines; "To the last, I grapple with thee..."; no deep metaphor; no CliffsNotes...just a story. And a good one. Thunderstorms, crummy landings, the Hump, malaria, ice, the Taj Mahal, DC-2s and C-87s...I won't re-tell it all here but it's a story I can relate to, even though I've never been a pilot. Read it someday and you'll see. You might see something about me in there too as you go along.
One of my favorite passages is in the last chapter:
"Tell me now...since you are older and wiser, by what ends does a man ever partially control his fate? It is obvious from the special history of our kind that favorites are played, but if this is so, then how do you account for those who are ill-treated? The worship of pagan gods, which once answered all this, is no longer fashionable. Modern religions ignore the matter of fate. So we are left confused and without direction.
Let us admit, then, that the complete answer may only be revealed when it can no longer serve those most interested.
Perhaps we should hide in childlike visions of afterlife wherein those pronounced good may play upon harps and those pronounced evil, stoke fires.
...At least let us admit that the pattern of anyone's fate is only partly contrived by the individual."
Ernest K. Gann, "Fate is the Hunter"
There's an idea in there that says something to me. I haven't figured out quite what it is or what it means yet...but if I leave that book on the nightstand long enough, I just might.
Believe it or not...I read more than I write and sometimes I actually have a minute or three to do that very thing. My favorite book is still a less-than-well-known autobiography called " Fate is the Hunter "and my old softcover copy is now very faded and dog-eared from being read over and over. It's the memoir of an airline and transport pilot who flew in the early days of commercial aviation, beginning before World War II and on into the '50s. Ernest K. Gann, I know is not a literary giant in the sense of a Dickens or a Tolstoy but his story suits me just the same. As a much-loved book should, it speaks to me and makes me think. So what if it isn't a 'classic'...
I'm not much of a highbrow type anyway I guess. I chewed my way through "The Inferno" a while back, mostly just to say I had. Talk about a workout. "Moby Dick" was a tough go as well. It turned out I actually liked it but I had to work pretty hard to digest that many chapters and it's not the kind of thing I can just pick it up and read a few paragraphs of before I pull the covers up and call it a day.
I often do exactly that with "Fate"; find it on the nightstand or pick it off the floor where I dropped it last time, open it to a random page and start in. It's like a comfortable old chair where I can spend some time and fall asleep with the light on. There's no famous, epic lines; "To the last, I grapple with thee..."; no deep metaphor; no CliffsNotes...just a story. And a good one. Thunderstorms, crummy landings, the Hump, malaria, ice, the Taj Mahal, DC-2s and C-87s...I won't re-tell it all here but it's a story I can relate to, even though I've never been a pilot. Read it someday and you'll see. You might see something about me in there too as you go along.
One of my favorite passages is in the last chapter:
"Tell me now...since you are older and wiser, by what ends does a man ever partially control his fate? It is obvious from the special history of our kind that favorites are played, but if this is so, then how do you account for those who are ill-treated? The worship of pagan gods, which once answered all this, is no longer fashionable. Modern religions ignore the matter of fate. So we are left confused and without direction.
Let us admit, then, that the complete answer may only be revealed when it can no longer serve those most interested.
Perhaps we should hide in childlike visions of afterlife wherein those pronounced good may play upon harps and those pronounced evil, stoke fires.
...At least let us admit that the pattern of anyone's fate is only partly contrived by the individual."
Ernest K. Gann, "Fate is the Hunter"
There's an idea in there that says something to me. I haven't figured out quite what it is or what it means yet...but if I leave that book on the nightstand long enough, I just might.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
The End (of the OCS)
So down the road we went with our travelling show. After our brush with the detector, there were only minor distractions and I spent the next few hours trying to look cool and collected. My mother told me once that she thought I was like a duck; calm and unruffled on the surface but paddling like crazy underneath. If only she knew how true that was.
Finally, it came down to the last long swoop off the hill into home. By some accident, the set on the brakes was right and we coasted in like we knew what we were doing. And just like that, it was almost over. The plan was to change head-end crews first, then have the fresh guys pull the rear of the train to a crossing to load and unload passengers. Sounded good to me. There suddenly wasn't much energy left in the old guy.
I pulled to a stop and sagged in my seat. Suddenly I was very weary even though it was not yet noon. The outbound crew waited by the ladder as we handed out our grips, still trying to do everything by the book right to the bitter end. The Road Foremen thanked us and smiled. One leg of the trip was over for them and we hadn't gotten them or us dismissed. I thought I might actually kiss the ground when my boots came down off the last step. I refrained however and contented myself with giving the outbound a fare-thee-well rundown and then fading into the background to watch the proceedings.
The last car stopped on the dot and a whirl of passengers came and went. At the last minute, my CEO appeared one more time and shook my hand. Our Chief Operating Officer also swung by and chatted a minute or two before it was time for them to load up and head west. As before, there was more talk of bicycles than trains. Funny thing...bicycles...who ever would have thought? A smile and a wave and they were off to board the coaches. I hung out for a minute to watch the markers go around the corner and out of sight. Suddenly I realized I felt like I'd been hit by a truck and staggered across the track to the office to call it a day. My grip and book bag felt like they weighed as much as the train and I realized my vest was on inside-out. Oh well.
One of my friends was around to take some photos. I thought Lucky was going to have to prop me up for the picture...
At the end of the day, for all the stress and worry, the experience was worth it. Particularly since I managed to keep my job and everybody went away happy. I can say "Been there, done that" and add it to the list of things I might never do again. We'll see...
As a little postscript; I was driving home when my cell rang. Seems the second unit had caught on fire less than three miles from where I handed off the train. Talk about dodging the bullet...but that's another story.
Finally, it came down to the last long swoop off the hill into home. By some accident, the set on the brakes was right and we coasted in like we knew what we were doing. And just like that, it was almost over. The plan was to change head-end crews first, then have the fresh guys pull the rear of the train to a crossing to load and unload passengers. Sounded good to me. There suddenly wasn't much energy left in the old guy.
I pulled to a stop and sagged in my seat. Suddenly I was very weary even though it was not yet noon. The outbound crew waited by the ladder as we handed out our grips, still trying to do everything by the book right to the bitter end. The Road Foremen thanked us and smiled. One leg of the trip was over for them and we hadn't gotten them or us dismissed. I thought I might actually kiss the ground when my boots came down off the last step. I refrained however and contented myself with giving the outbound a fare-thee-well rundown and then fading into the background to watch the proceedings.
The last car stopped on the dot and a whirl of passengers came and went. At the last minute, my CEO appeared one more time and shook my hand. Our Chief Operating Officer also swung by and chatted a minute or two before it was time for them to load up and head west. As before, there was more talk of bicycles than trains. Funny thing...bicycles...who ever would have thought? A smile and a wave and they were off to board the coaches. I hung out for a minute to watch the markers go around the corner and out of sight. Suddenly I realized I felt like I'd been hit by a truck and staggered across the track to the office to call it a day. My grip and book bag felt like they weighed as much as the train and I realized my vest was on inside-out. Oh well.
One of my friends was around to take some photos. I thought Lucky was going to have to prop me up for the picture...
At the end of the day, for all the stress and worry, the experience was worth it. Particularly since I managed to keep my job and everybody went away happy. I can say "Been there, done that" and add it to the list of things I might never do again. We'll see...
As a little postscript; I was driving home when my cell rang. Seems the second unit had caught on fire less than three miles from where I handed off the train. Talk about dodging the bullet...but that's another story.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
The OCS Third
Day three of the project started early. Much before dawn, my alarm and the wake-up call I'd set the night before woke me out of an often-interrupted sleep to saddle up and get underway. Even the breakfast buffet in the lobby was still hours away so we made a stop at a convenient store to load up my coffee thermos and grab something to munch. This had a familiar ring to it. If we hadn't been riding in a manager's Jeep, it would have been just like the thousands of other wee-hour expeditions to get on trains over the years. Zero-dark-thirty is well known to train crews.
The sun was a faint smudge over the hills when we got to the yard but the railroad police and a pack of officials were already patrolling up and down the sleeper cars. We got a wave from a well-armed special agent past what looked very much like a checkpoint to get to the train. I was expecting someone to bark, "Papers!" but I guess the hi-viz vests and goofy-looking safety glasses gave us away as T and E. Nobody else in the world would wear the things.
In truth, I actually had a brand new vest for the occasion as my everyday working one is only yellow about halfway up the front from too many brushes against greasy engines. The bosses thought we should at least try to keep up appearances for the big show so a couple of fresh ones suddenly became available and we went well-dressed if not wildly enthusiastic.
With the actual crack of dawn, the System Road Foreman (who would ride the head-end with us) came along to get the party started. This guy is the one I ultimately answer to on all things engineering and so I was somewhat nervous about his presence. Here was another of the reputed evil career-killers who as it turns out, isn't anything like the hype. He's younger than I am and soon proved to be basically a pleasant guy to work with. I have no illusions that he could in fact probably be a hard-ass should the occasion warrant or he wouldn't be wearing the title but for now, he seemed mostly interested in getting the circus on the road with a minimum of uproar and finding more coffee. I voiced a couple of concerns and questions about handling the train but he seemed relatively unconcerned. His advice was to just do what I know and not worry about it. He did mention that we'd undoubtedly be the first to catch hell if anything was unsatisfactory back in the coaches but waved it off as unlikely. He inspected the units for me and signed the daily cards before drifting off to fill his coffee cup while my conductor and I chewed over the bulletins and tried to think positively.
Other official-types were about including my division superintendent who I'd met on other occasions so at least I recognized him when he strolled up and said good morning. His first question for me was to ask how many times I'd run the business train in the past, to which my answer was of course, "Zip" except for the unoccupied deadhead move two days prior. They don't exactly let you borrow their zillion-dollar, pimped-out, rock-star train-set just for practice so the opportunity had never presented itself. You go locked and loaded the first time you step up to the plate and hope for the best. I allowed as how I was pretty familiar with the territory having run it for years but had never actually pulled a passenger gig before.
He looked a little surprised by that revelation and casually mentioned that a little run-in of slack on the head-end translates to taking people off their feet on the rear. Like I needed to know that. He advised caution, wished me well and then was off leaving me to wonder what my next career would possibly be after today. No stress.
Shortly before we launched for the run home, the CEO came by once again with a grin and encouragement. As before, he was easy to chat with and seemed completely at ease. Whatever business they might be pursuing back in those cars is so far beyond my ken that it's unlikely I could comprehend any of it and I'm sure the pressure was up there in his world just as it was in mine. Different scales of pressure I'm sure but for the moment, all of that was put aside and I could have been talking to some guy at the bike shop about my next set of tires. He also wished me luck and went on his way. A day at the office for him I suppose but that camper of his I was going to drive was giving me the jitters. It's probably a stock line since he does this all the time but it was kind of fun to hear him comment, "Don't worry. If anything goes wrong, we just fire the Road Foreman." I know better but as was intended, it took the edge off a little.
With all the formalities finished and everyone aboard, it was finally time to earn my keep. The jump seats were occupied by Road Foremen from two railroads and my conductor and I took up our long-accustomed positions left and right. A final check on the radio to the train to make sure we had all the VIPs and suddenly it was showtime.
Now in full daylight and miraculously on schedule, the signal in front of us turned green for our track and the curtain went up. With a honk of the horn and the bell ringing, I took one last gulp, snipped back the throttle, eased out the slack and tiptoed out of the siding and onto the main. How did I ever get myself into this? Hordes of photographers were festooned on every vantage point until we got out of town. You could almost hear the whir of motor-drives over the racket in the cab. Such dedication.
Determined to give it a good shot or at least go down fighting, I dragged the brakes through the first couple of sags, feeling it out once again. A steep, nasty little dip went by and we were now on an uphill without killing anyone as of yet. As I said, these are freight brakes on passenger equipment so if you release them at all, you have to release them all the way. You can ease off the throttle but not the brakes. This complicates things when also trying to maintain a constant speed and learning it as you go. Think of it as taking your foot all the way off the brake pedal of your car and then having to wait a couple of minutes before you can use it again. It takes a little planning or at least dumb luck to make it work. Luck was with me so far and the RFs looked relieved. I, on the other hand was already sweating in the air-conditioning with a hundred plus miles still to go.
The fact that my side window was riveted shut (which I'd noted the night before but hadn't thought much about) started to make a difference when I realized I couldn't look back and see the train. I have a long-established practice of sticking my head out the window and watching for things like sparks or smoke from the cars and have been rewarded by actually finding them a few times. With the window closed beside me and a full-width locomotive body at my back, I felt like I was half blind. Trying to turn around to look out the non-existent rear window gave me a great view of a blank door and a grin from the RF. He allowed as how everybody does that, the only difference being how many times in one trip. I managed to get the side mirror where I wanted it and promptly swivelled my seat to gaze at the back wall once again. Old habits die hard. It wasn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things but you fall back on what you know when the pressure's on. Like rubbing a rabbits foot, I needed the familiar. Not finding it, I resigned myself to seeing a lot of that wall and soldiered on.
I do know there was some chit-chat among my three cab-mates as the day went along but I really can't remember much of it. I had my eyes constantly jumping between the speedo, air gauges, rear wall and out the windshield looking for the next low spot that would require a stretch to keep the slack tight. I found that the train handled nicely even when loaded but also learned it's reaction time is very fast. It would jump over the speed limit in a second if I looked away from the speed indicator too long or was a tad late getting the air set for a downhill. My boss seemed content to study a track chart and if he was watching the proceedings with a critical eye, he didn't let on. So far so good.
A snag developed when we rolled over our first wayside defect detector. I wondered if it would behave since I was dragging the train against the brakes and had been for a while to keep it slowed down. A hit on the hotbox detector would really be less than ideal so I hoped the wheels were cool enough for the detector to let us slide. It did but it's radio message included "Detector Malfunction". Crap. The CPRR gods couldn't even get us by this thing the one time when it really mattered. A call to the dispatcher couldn't get us an office indication of what was wrong so it was 30 mph until we could get a roll-by inspection of both sides. Our shadowing local Road Foreman caught us at a couple of crossings in the next few miles to give us a twice-over and luckily got us back up to speed.
From there, it's kind of a blur of brakes, throttle, horn and worry. I expected to see nothing but green on the signals for a move like this and that's exactly what we got. I'm sure the CP wanted nothing more than to have this thing off their property and out of their hair as quickly as possible. Every other train went in the hole for us and I got my first taste of running the hottest thing on the railroad. I don't think I've ever been so focused on getting it right. I know there was times when I went too deep on the brakes and had to yank pretty hard but all I cared about was making sure I never felt that little bump the superintendent was talking about. I had visions of vice-presidents plastered against the bulkheads and various department heads draped over the tables with lunch pressed firmly into their ties. It must have worked. The halfway point came and went without a hint of my imminent dismissal. The sun was still shining and I was still employed...miracles never cease.
The sun was a faint smudge over the hills when we got to the yard but the railroad police and a pack of officials were already patrolling up and down the sleeper cars. We got a wave from a well-armed special agent past what looked very much like a checkpoint to get to the train. I was expecting someone to bark, "Papers!" but I guess the hi-viz vests and goofy-looking safety glasses gave us away as T and E. Nobody else in the world would wear the things.
In truth, I actually had a brand new vest for the occasion as my everyday working one is only yellow about halfway up the front from too many brushes against greasy engines. The bosses thought we should at least try to keep up appearances for the big show so a couple of fresh ones suddenly became available and we went well-dressed if not wildly enthusiastic.
With the actual crack of dawn, the System Road Foreman (who would ride the head-end with us) came along to get the party started. This guy is the one I ultimately answer to on all things engineering and so I was somewhat nervous about his presence. Here was another of the reputed evil career-killers who as it turns out, isn't anything like the hype. He's younger than I am and soon proved to be basically a pleasant guy to work with. I have no illusions that he could in fact probably be a hard-ass should the occasion warrant or he wouldn't be wearing the title but for now, he seemed mostly interested in getting the circus on the road with a minimum of uproar and finding more coffee. I voiced a couple of concerns and questions about handling the train but he seemed relatively unconcerned. His advice was to just do what I know and not worry about it. He did mention that we'd undoubtedly be the first to catch hell if anything was unsatisfactory back in the coaches but waved it off as unlikely. He inspected the units for me and signed the daily cards before drifting off to fill his coffee cup while my conductor and I chewed over the bulletins and tried to think positively.
Other official-types were about including my division superintendent who I'd met on other occasions so at least I recognized him when he strolled up and said good morning. His first question for me was to ask how many times I'd run the business train in the past, to which my answer was of course, "Zip" except for the unoccupied deadhead move two days prior. They don't exactly let you borrow their zillion-dollar, pimped-out, rock-star train-set just for practice so the opportunity had never presented itself. You go locked and loaded the first time you step up to the plate and hope for the best. I allowed as how I was pretty familiar with the territory having run it for years but had never actually pulled a passenger gig before.
He looked a little surprised by that revelation and casually mentioned that a little run-in of slack on the head-end translates to taking people off their feet on the rear. Like I needed to know that. He advised caution, wished me well and then was off leaving me to wonder what my next career would possibly be after today. No stress.
Shortly before we launched for the run home, the CEO came by once again with a grin and encouragement. As before, he was easy to chat with and seemed completely at ease. Whatever business they might be pursuing back in those cars is so far beyond my ken that it's unlikely I could comprehend any of it and I'm sure the pressure was up there in his world just as it was in mine. Different scales of pressure I'm sure but for the moment, all of that was put aside and I could have been talking to some guy at the bike shop about my next set of tires. He also wished me luck and went on his way. A day at the office for him I suppose but that camper of his I was going to drive was giving me the jitters. It's probably a stock line since he does this all the time but it was kind of fun to hear him comment, "Don't worry. If anything goes wrong, we just fire the Road Foreman." I know better but as was intended, it took the edge off a little.
With all the formalities finished and everyone aboard, it was finally time to earn my keep. The jump seats were occupied by Road Foremen from two railroads and my conductor and I took up our long-accustomed positions left and right. A final check on the radio to the train to make sure we had all the VIPs and suddenly it was showtime.
Now in full daylight and miraculously on schedule, the signal in front of us turned green for our track and the curtain went up. With a honk of the horn and the bell ringing, I took one last gulp, snipped back the throttle, eased out the slack and tiptoed out of the siding and onto the main. How did I ever get myself into this? Hordes of photographers were festooned on every vantage point until we got out of town. You could almost hear the whir of motor-drives over the racket in the cab. Such dedication.
Determined to give it a good shot or at least go down fighting, I dragged the brakes through the first couple of sags, feeling it out once again. A steep, nasty little dip went by and we were now on an uphill without killing anyone as of yet. As I said, these are freight brakes on passenger equipment so if you release them at all, you have to release them all the way. You can ease off the throttle but not the brakes. This complicates things when also trying to maintain a constant speed and learning it as you go. Think of it as taking your foot all the way off the brake pedal of your car and then having to wait a couple of minutes before you can use it again. It takes a little planning or at least dumb luck to make it work. Luck was with me so far and the RFs looked relieved. I, on the other hand was already sweating in the air-conditioning with a hundred plus miles still to go.
The fact that my side window was riveted shut (which I'd noted the night before but hadn't thought much about) started to make a difference when I realized I couldn't look back and see the train. I have a long-established practice of sticking my head out the window and watching for things like sparks or smoke from the cars and have been rewarded by actually finding them a few times. With the window closed beside me and a full-width locomotive body at my back, I felt like I was half blind. Trying to turn around to look out the non-existent rear window gave me a great view of a blank door and a grin from the RF. He allowed as how everybody does that, the only difference being how many times in one trip. I managed to get the side mirror where I wanted it and promptly swivelled my seat to gaze at the back wall once again. Old habits die hard. It wasn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things but you fall back on what you know when the pressure's on. Like rubbing a rabbits foot, I needed the familiar. Not finding it, I resigned myself to seeing a lot of that wall and soldiered on.
I do know there was some chit-chat among my three cab-mates as the day went along but I really can't remember much of it. I had my eyes constantly jumping between the speedo, air gauges, rear wall and out the windshield looking for the next low spot that would require a stretch to keep the slack tight. I found that the train handled nicely even when loaded but also learned it's reaction time is very fast. It would jump over the speed limit in a second if I looked away from the speed indicator too long or was a tad late getting the air set for a downhill. My boss seemed content to study a track chart and if he was watching the proceedings with a critical eye, he didn't let on. So far so good.
A snag developed when we rolled over our first wayside defect detector. I wondered if it would behave since I was dragging the train against the brakes and had been for a while to keep it slowed down. A hit on the hotbox detector would really be less than ideal so I hoped the wheels were cool enough for the detector to let us slide. It did but it's radio message included "Detector Malfunction". Crap. The CPRR gods couldn't even get us by this thing the one time when it really mattered. A call to the dispatcher couldn't get us an office indication of what was wrong so it was 30 mph until we could get a roll-by inspection of both sides. Our shadowing local Road Foreman caught us at a couple of crossings in the next few miles to give us a twice-over and luckily got us back up to speed.
From there, it's kind of a blur of brakes, throttle, horn and worry. I expected to see nothing but green on the signals for a move like this and that's exactly what we got. I'm sure the CP wanted nothing more than to have this thing off their property and out of their hair as quickly as possible. Every other train went in the hole for us and I got my first taste of running the hottest thing on the railroad. I don't think I've ever been so focused on getting it right. I know there was times when I went too deep on the brakes and had to yank pretty hard but all I cared about was making sure I never felt that little bump the superintendent was talking about. I had visions of vice-presidents plastered against the bulkheads and various department heads draped over the tables with lunch pressed firmly into their ties. It must have worked. The halfway point came and went without a hint of my imminent dismissal. The sun was still shining and I was still employed...miracles never cease.
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