The coming apocalypse does not scare me

Anna’s been doing an awesome job in the landscape front. While the weather shouted SPRING IZ HERE over the weekend, she tore up the mudslick on the back of the porch and edged it out, then laid down some mulch and new Peony bulbs. I really miss my peonys from the old place, and might have to go leech the smell from there if these don’t manage to bloom this year. She also got a couple starter kits of peat moss pods. They (random herbs, veggies, and annuals) began sprouting in a week! Usually I'm pretty into the landscaping bit, but I didn't feel ready to think of a plan since there's too much else to do here, yet. But I won't stand in the way of a Woman who wants to get in touch with her inner hippie. Besides, maybe this way I can get out of mowing the mess all summer, ha ha.

While she did that on Sunday, I helped the neighbor remove the alternator on his 2001 Pontiac Montana. Holey-freaking-moley, what a disaster of design. As if FWD wasn’t bad enough, and vans weren’t already a compromise of engine packaging... Let’s combine them! Just about the whole “front” (transversely speaking) of the engine had to come off, just to remove the alternator. It took over an hour even after I got involved! On my T-birds it’s always been two bolts, 5 minutes. I hope the Freestyle isn’t this bad. It’s FWD but it’s not a van so the engine isn’t half buried under the cowl.

Oh yeah. In their infinite wisdom from decades of experience, GM put the alternator in the very back – i.e., the hottest ambient part – of the engine bay. You even had to remove part of the windshield wiper linkage to extract it. Morons!

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Usually I’d be excited about planning an annual springtime trip to Chicago about now... usually for Palm Sunday at my Grandma's. But I’m just not feeling it this year – probably for the fear of lingering stench of family drama a few weeks ago. For the record, I hold no grudge or ill-will toward those involved. But the sad part is I've nothing to apologize for, and for once refuse to do the ol’ sword-fall shuffle (even though the claymore on my mantle looks positively hungry)... so if the others stubbornly feel the same way, I’ve no way of knowing. I don’t wish to shortchange my girls on visiting their other family, but I'm not risking the potential angst and awkwardness. And because there are two factions to deal with, requiring individually large degrees of finesse, the number of mines in the field is doubled. In the end, since I don't need any more incentive to attempt shortening the typically 6-hour drive to four or less going home, it's not worth it. Maybe by the summer or fall, time will have scabbed enough to lessen the risk. I hope so.

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Bethany, bless her, is positively giddy about my impending birthday this week. It's funny how a child can make you look forward to something you'd rather not acknowledge, and then I remember how fun they used to be. These are the good things about having kids that people don't often tell you about.

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There's a bit of a Pandora's Design Issue with our house. The attic entrance is over the basement stairwell. It's a simple access panel - no fancy-schmancy pulldown stairs to club you in the chin... just a panel you jump-pop out of place. No big deal...

...except when it comes to figuring out where to put the ladder to get up there! Facing "down" the stairs, your only choice is to brace the top of the ladder inside the access hole. Which works great. But leaves so little room, my fat italian ass has no hope of getting through!

So you turn it around, and brace the ladder against the doorway and not inside the hole. This now puts the base of the ladder on one narrow step, and effectively doubles the height and steepness of the stairway. Can you say "You're an idiot"?

And as if that wasn't bad enough - there's a lightbulb two full feet past the access hole, on the ceiling over the stairs.

HOW DID THEY MAINTAIN ANY OF THIS?

(Did I ever mention I have a borderline-irrational fear of heights?)

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Some good and bad things on the modeling front (warning - trainnerdramble, read at your own risk):

Bad: I bought a set of Walthers Modern Cantilever Crossing Signals and one of their Automatic Signal Controllers, in January. It’s essentially just a flasher circuit triggered using two pairs of photo-resistors placed on either side of a crossing (one triggers “on” when the train covers it, the second triggers “off” when the train passes by; one pair for each possible directional input). It worked great on the test bench, but I found two problems with it that made me feel stupid for not doing some ‘net research:

1) It’s made for DC-only

2) A single controller cannot handle the extra inputs required to properly guard a dual-track crossing.

Now the second one I could forgive, as this is sort of a scarcer scenario as applied to layout designs. Plus, the STC one-ups this confusion by merging the tracks immediately after the crossing (so 3 pairs of sensors would be needed). I can understand the controller not being designed to handle this.

But DC-only? In the Age of Sound and Realism and DCC-Ready Everything? Who let this thing out of product planning?

At any rate the kit was only blinking the dust on my workbench into submission since mid-January. After giving up on the idea of a split-circuit feed to handle both tracks in the STC plan, I tried to figure out how to make the signals work with both DC and DCC control. After all, my existing Busch crossbuck signals, though manually operated, still work without regard to the motive power source: DC or DCC, all I do is flip a switch to turn them on (and off).

The Walthers set apparently fries if used on DCC (due to DCC's higher constant voltage) so, no deal - frying them would suck because that controller was expensive. But it’s absurd to run modern sound-equipped locomotives with advanced sound effects, and not have signals at all, while my crappy Tyco stuff would automatically trigger them. All aboard the Dichotomy Express!

I thought about a wiring the signal input power to tie into the STC’s main custom DC/DCC input selector switch, which would disable the controller when on DCC and enabling for DC ops. As for not having signals on DCC, I could at least use the Busch signals on the second crossing….

…About the time I resigned myself to this, I realized: They worked fine on the workbench... independent of the layout trackage... using my testing power pack. And the Busch signals ran off a separate power pack... ah-ha! So what if my workbench were under the layout and the signals were “tested” in place? The only thing that “DC track” power is used for is directional sensing in relation to the movement of a train. Otherwise, I could use any DC pack not running trains. So I might lose directional sense, but big deal… I’d at least automate the signals without regard to what was powering the trains. Like what I already have.

So I drilled the holes in the track, soldered new 4-foot wire leads to the sensors and installed them, disconnected the old signals, and ran all the controller connections as before, except using my production power equipment instead of test junk. Flipped the switch, gleefully watched them work for a few seconds, proceeded to turn my attention to now tidying the wire runs and preparing to affix the controller in a permanent location…

…and became aware of the subtly sweet tickle of the odor of ozone. Which brought my attention to the controller which was happily indulging its fantasies of being a steam locomotive, puffing away indiscriminately.

S#--!

Turns out after all my angst and careful prepwork, there was a manufacturing defect in the controller! A pre-fab solder point on the PCB was not fully connected to its lead wire. Of course, the charred resistors inside make it look like a regular ol’ numnutz tried installing it improperly. But Walthers nonetheless asked me to send it back (on my dime of course) and they would “look at it”.

Sigh. 2 months of planning… so what’s a week of postal limbo and another of manufacturer discretion? In the meantime, I guess I can stage some crossing incidents and send them the lawsuits…

Good News? After the signal fiasco, and rehabbing some more vintage RTR cars, I got the bench cleared enough to return to the Flexi-Flo Hopper project. Finally cut some scale see-through diamond plate for the end platforms. And, I think that’s about it as far as “hurdles” - although that one wasn’t so much a hurdle as it was just sitting down to do it without distraction. As for the rest of the modifications, I have enough photo references to make use of materials I have on hand. It’s funny that even in the age of the internet, good info and reference photos on these cars are kind of obscure. I can’t wait to finish this one. I just need to pace myself and take pics along the way.

And hope the camera holds out for that… it’s begun applying its own Venetian blind filter to random shots.

Blinds are only good when you're about to be shot, or trying to block the thermo-nuclear streetlamp across the road. Trust me on that one....