Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

[ Puzzle posts ] No progress yesterday, but tonight I spent some quality time with the sky. Almost there.

[ Puzzle posts ] About 80% done.

[ Puzzle posts ] I forgot to take a picture yesterday, but I hadn't touched the puzzle much Friday and Saturday. Today it just rolled nicely. I started with the sunlit reflection of house and tower, bounced around the trees on the right for a while, flip-flopping with the trees and reflection on the left, then filled in the darker areas in the water until I had no dark tiles left.

Time to mow the lawn.

[ Murrbahn posts ] Main Level In this updated version of the track plan I tried to address short-comings of the previous version . Not much changed on the main level. I straightened out the curve on the left of Backnang station and am now going through the closet wall. I also locked down the space for industrial area, matching the area of the Untergroeningen station above it. Thinking through traffic patterns and how engine changes will work, I think I need to flip direction assignments of tracks 3 and 4 to better match the track work on the right-hand side of the station. In Backnang many trains changed power from steam- to electric-powered locomotives. The problem is that currently there is no efficient way for a waiting engine on track 7 to get to a Stuttgart-bound train standing on track 4.  If Stuttgart-bound trains arrived on track 3, the steam locomotive can uncouple and pull forward to the cross-over near the West-end of the storage tracks and head back to the turntable vi...

Train 267 at Mt. Nicholls At this month's ops session I jumped on helper service engines as soon as I arrived, spending the next hour or so helping other trains up and down the loop. Later on, I ran train 267 the northbound grain train from Bakersfield to Nowheres. The major assignment of the evening were train 215, first and third section, as well as train 216. The latter was overlength with 37 cars. A very enjoyable modern ops session with lots of very long trains in revenue service. Train 215, section one  (25 cars)  at Hallelujah , while Dave runs the paper mill switcher

We had a reservation to hike out to the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo State Park today. Unfortunately, not that many seals were on shore, but we still got to see some nice action. This male bears some deep scars from fights with other males. The males basically hang around on the beach looking after the girls and trying to make babies. Any rivals that get to close get shooed away, or beaten up if they don't want to listen. What a painful and stressful job. This morning, this male was in a bloody fight with another male. Sigh. You barely have any time to relax around here. Back on the job. Time's up! We're heading away from the beach, while another group is making their way down.

[ Puzzle posts ]

[ Puzzle posts ] I'm at it again . Terrible time really with taxes coming up in the near future, but I felt like it. Let's see how this plays out ...

Skiing in Heavenly can be highly variable. Saturday we had sunshine, warm temperatures, and slushy snow. At the top of Gunbarrel Express chair lift. Franziska is doing great. On Sunday, strong winds closed half of the mountain, and made -- in combination with falling temperatures -- taking a break uncomfortable. Ominous clouds were with us all day long. Snowfall finally started in the late afternoon. Monday morning we had a couple inches fresh snow. On the mountain, temperatures were in the single digits Fahrenheit. It was cold. The snow was nice, but compacted pretty quickly on the trails. Did I mention it was cold? I'm not equipped for skiing in that kind of weather, since California skiing is usually much more like on Saturday. The drive home turned into a 7-hour exercise in patience. It started snowing again, the roads were slick, and many cars got stuck on minor inclines. It took 2 hours alone to get out of South Lake Tahoe. Chain control was in effect over Echo Pass to Twin B...

I don't often post pictures of beer cars, but when I do, I show the bottle.

The plane is ready. I'm ready, too. And we got into SFO half an hour early. I had a middle seat, so no photos from the flight or arrival, but they'd all look the same anyways ...

Breakfast started with a yummy Brezel and coffee at the gate in Stuttgart, continued with a mediocre chocolate croissant and coffee on the flight to Paris, and finished with coffee and excellent anglaise apricot from Paul at Terminal 2E. I have another hour to kill before it's time for boarding the flight to San Francisco.

Another early morning departure. This is starting to become routine... Just like last time , Terminal 3 in Stuttgart is mostly deserted at 5am, although this time TUI had a flight leaving early, too, so the security check point actually had lines from all those passengers in vacation mood.

Isn't this a beautiful day? Hard to believe that only 2 hours earlier Ludwigsburg looked like this: The weatherman in the evening news yesterday described his forecast as "typical April weather". He was certainly right about that. Snowfall was rather dense, but gone only 10 minutes after I took this photo.

A favorite sleeping spot.

Last night to the delight of my mother I made apple cake. Let's see if it tastes as good as it looks. Her oven is running a bit hotter than ours, so the cake got a little bit darker than expected.

Winter comes for a short visit, just like last time .

Tonight it started snowing. Nothing remained on the ground, but it's still nice to see the snow.

The model train club Eisenbahnfreunde Bietigheim-Bissingen occupies a small historic building in Kammgarnspinnerei, a neighborhood in Bietigheim-Bissingen. The club layout is lovingly built out with lots of details and complex scenery. The track plan is basically a major station on a double-track main line with a branch line on one side and a narrow gauge line on the other side. The main station in Mayburg is generously laid out with a nice cityscape hiding the control panels. This photo gives a great impression of the wonderful atmosphere in the building. EFBB has built a scene depicting the famous turntable drop of UEF 01 1066 in Kornwestheim. On the other leg of the layout is nicely arranged dramatic scenery. The center of the room is equipped with seats in style of a train compartment.   The medieval town of Goesselstein has a well-visited marketplace in a historic atmosphere. The traffic inside the double helix to and from staging is fascinating to watch. There was a flea...