Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

Bei wunderbarem Wetter gehen wir ins Bluehende Barock. In den Gaerten sind die Strohwelten aufgebaut. Eine Runde durch den Maerchengarten im Boot muss natuerlich sein. "Hilfe! Ein Wal!" Wieder in Sicherheit finden wir wieder viele schoene Perspektiven. Wasserspiele vor der Kulisse der Stadtkirche.

In Steinach an der Strecke Wuerzburg - Treuchtlingen werden neue Ks-Signale installiert. Die neuen Signale stehen bereits zum grossen Teil. Die Verkabelung scheint aber noch zu fehlen. Die Baumassnahmen finden unter laufenden Betrieb statt, daher sind die neuen Signale mit einem weissen Kreuz als ungueltig markiert. Oha, da liegt noch ein Mast ... ... das koennte ein interessantes Ladegut sein. Ein schoener Ruecken ... Die Strecke ist selbst an einem Feiertag dicht mit Gueterverkehr belegt. In der Viertelstunde, die ich hier sehr zur Irritation des oertlichen Fahrdienstleiters rumgelaufen bin, kamen drei Gueterzuege Richtung Ansbach durch.

Ist noch gar nicht so lange her, dass ich ein Wochenende in Waldenburg verbrachte. Heute haben wir einen kleinen Abstecher gemacht und den Ort bei Sonnenschein besichtigt. Die Anfaenge einer Befestigung auf dem Bergsporn reichen bis in das 12. Jahrhundert zurueck. Heute dominiert das Schloss der Grafen von Hohenlohe die Anfahrt von Norden her. Ein Grossteil des Ortes wurde am Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs durch Artillerie und Feuer zerstoert. Der Ort wurde innerhalb der historischen Stadtmauer zum grossen Teil neu gebaut, man sieht aber auch einige alte Haeuser, die restauriert wurden. Die Aussicht ueber die Hohenlohe Ebene ist beeindruckend. Nur leider stoeren die Industriebetriebe unten im Tal, und ich habe kein Foto gemacht. Es ist kurz vor Ostern. Immer wieder findet man kleine und grosse oesterlich geschmueckte Brunnen. Schoen hier.

In Amsterdam geht es mit dem Bus zu einer Vorfeldposition. Im Terminal habe ich mir die Zeit mit passendem Lesematerial vertrieben. Den Flug habe ich ueberwiegend verschlafen, mein Ruecken "dankt" es mir. Ankunft in Stuttgart. Zuhause gab es Maultauschen und zum Nachtisch frisch gebackenen Kuchen mit Schlagsahne, ... und viel Kaffee. Ich muss noch 5 Stunden wach bleiben.

Taking the Blue Bird over the ocean. The bird landed and proudly docked at E gates ten hours later. Hanging out in the transfer hall for a couple hours to wait for my connecting flight to Stuttgart.

Since the last time I built a PC from parts, cooling fans have been getting bigger and motherboards emptier.

First time ever we made ribs. Beans and homemade slaw on the sides. It all came out great, and there will be more of this in the future.

Ubiquiti Networks makes the Unifi Security Gateway (USG) as part of their Unifi series of enterprise networking products. A core feature of these units is that a software controller holds all the relevant information about a site, and centrally configures the respective devices at that site. So far, so good. Unless you are building a completely new network, you might already have Unifi devices installed in your network. I have a couple Unifi accesspoints , and a bunch of Linux infrastructure including an existing controller. Adding a USG to the mix turned out to be surprisingly non-intuitive. At first I took the common route of connecting the WAN interface of the USG to my internal network, and a laptop to the internal network behind the USG. Of course, in order to now configure the USG, I need a controller on that laptop. The process of adopting the USG to that controller worked just fine. I played around with the settings until I was confident in what and how I want to set this up. A...

After the rains from last week finally stopped, I took the bike to the bus stop this morning in the dark. Right. I forgot how dark it is at 6:15am. However, the way home tonight was very nice, and I even saw some turkeys.

Are you tired of the rain photos yet? No worries. Here's another one.

From OMRS I headed straight to SeaTac airport, ran into a group of other Bay Area Soundrail returnees, went through security and headed to my gate. Well, at least I tried to. I checked in at an automated kiosk and printed my boarding pass only when I got to the airport, so I didn't look at any monitors and went straight to gate N16 for my 7:55 departure as printed on my boarding pass. When I finally made it to N gates, I saw the announcement on the terminal monitors that my flight is leaving from gate C15. Huh! At SeaTac, N gates is a satellite terminal, so I'd have to hop back on the airport train to get to C gates. I walked over to gate N16, and asked the staff what the deal is.  "Oh, the terminal displays are run by the Port Authority, they are often not updated quickly when there are changes. I'm supposed to work your flight tonight, so I sure hope it's going to show up soon. Let me call and find out." When she finally got off the phone, she told me  ...

High Bridge on the upper level  My layout assignment on the last day of Soundrail was the Olympic Model Railroad Society (OMRS) . This club layout is located in the basement of a building on the Thurston Country fair grounds and open to the public on occasion. There are many really neat scenes on this layout. The scenery is very well done and looks great. I'm showing a selection below. Canoes on the river near Marvin's Bluff Effective use of forced perspective in Marvin's Bluff. From the upper level trains take a helix down to the main level. The double-track main line has remote controlled turnouts and is fully signaled. Unfortunately, there were some gremlins in the detection logic which messed up signal indication at times. Seems like every layout that deploys signals has this kind of problem sooner or later. Seeing the signals in operation at OMRS reminded me of the pending signals project at Silicon Valley Lines. Signal bridge at South Shops near Seaport South Shops r...