You see some weird stuff on a bike.

     Riding the bike to and from work is a blast. You feel like a ball on a roulette wheel when you get on the on ramp, you never know what your are in for as you get up to speed, or what you are going to end up next to. Last night as I rolled on at Archibald on the 10 heading east for my short run to the 15 I had a fairly open stretch and was soon over in the HOV lane for a quick squirt. A bike was fast approaching and soon he rolled past on the left. A 1%er flying his colors and a bike that made mine look sparkling clean. As he went by the rear end of his bike was dancing around on the road like a black chicks butt in a NFL half-time show. I thought to myself; self, you can fix that. Just like a squealing fan belt on a car, you can fix that. He waddled up the road and went north on his way to church. You see some weird stuff on a bike.

    This morning on the ride north as I got on the 91 for the battle of lanes at the 15, I just stay in the slow lane as it gets me where I’m going so I just stay behind whoever and let them do their thing. This morning everybody took lanes to the left so it was wide open. I heard to the left rear of me what sounded like five bees in a mayonnaise jar coming up from behind. I saw the headlight; it was a bike, but what? I’m doing 70 and this guy with either brass or balls blows by me in a scooter. I’m talking the Bridgette Bardot type of scooter, best used on a Italian beach scene. The overpass to the northbound 15 has a dip at the transition back to earth and on a bike it bounces you around a bit as you still are in a curve. The faster you go the worse it gets, and I was tailing this guy to watch the show. He hit it good and lost about half a lane before he got it straight. He exited at the next ramp, I hope it was where he was going instead of to empty his shorts. You see some weird stuff on a bike.   

 

President's Weekend at Joshua Tree. 2014

 Punxsutawney Phil needs to move to the High Desert. He would care less if there was six more weeks of Winter if he was sunning himself on a rock at Joshua Tree.
  It was a beautiful weekend among the budding trees including a few Joshua Trees. The Mulberries are a tad confused and by next time will be in leaves; what the Quail don't get to as they are running around with new broods too. Lizards of all sizes had found a favorite rock for the day. Spring is on its way out here.
   President's weekend is the Standard Gauge Meet and we had six of them running and of course the GE 47 tonner too. The Barter boys came from both directions for a weekend of running dirt up the hill. I had to call off the drop bottom Barter Coal loads as we had raised the track far enough above the upper trestle. Bill Shepherd was back at building the turntable wall so it went there instead.
  John Barter came west with his 4-6-0 and Art came east with his 3-truck Shay. Of course plenty of cars as well to fill out the vehicles; the wooden drop bottom gondolas are always a hit around here. We can't wait for the 2 1/2" scale versions to go behind the 2-8-0's they are working on. I brought out the American and the Alco got a running too, the Barter boys used it Saturday afternoon with the drop bottoms and it looked good. Matt Z' had his juice jack pulling more than it's far share and a new visitor from the LA area with a little four wheeled electric locomotive as well as an engine he ran on the "G" scale for the day, Robert Guzman and his son.
  Greg and Becky made it out for the weekend to round out the Ratliff family. A surprise visit from Tom Gazsi was even in the works for the weekend. John Griffin has been hard at work with the Freight Motor as the upper High Line ballasting job has come along nicely. Bill Shepherd has been in town a few weeks and projects throughout the facility are surfacing the longer he is here. Expect to see him through the Narrow Gauge Meet.
 As mentioned the Narrow Gauge Meet is coming up, March 7-10, it is building up to be quite the show, Allan was roped into the Wagonmaster job and he says that all spots to camp are full. If you aren't on the list you better talk real nice and you might get to stay south of Hwy 62.
   We did do a little work on the hill, as John his been adding fill along side the track and ballasting the grade, we kicked the track a little closer to the mountain and it looks wonderful. A quick run with the Laser Level has us within acceptable tolerance's and the next 135 feet of track has steel stakes driven to help the grading process. We are into an area we haven't been in for a while; we need to cut out and remove rock so we can keep a close to flat grade for a siding before we get into the trestle district coming up. This is the last of the pre-graded high line before we get into terra incognito as we work ourselves up the side of the mountain. The grade was completed rough about thirty years ago an we have finally gotten there. We have done quite well working ourselves up the high line with a lot of help from the members, I'm sure we will get a lot further with continued help.
 A link at the bottom for pictures and as usual if you have any questions an E-mail at ratsgarage@yahoo.com will most usually get you an answer. See you at the Narrow Gauge Meet. Brian
https://picasaweb.google.com/Ratsgarage/PresidentSWeekendAtJoshuaTree214172014?authuser=0&feat=directlink

A full Moon story.

This is a reprint from January 15th, 2014 but every full Moon gets the same. The picture Dominique sent me as her reply. Thanks girl.

   I tried to take a picture of tonight's full moon to no avail, iphones do not do very well at that. Of course a full moon always waxes poetically with me. I think of when we as American's stood on that orb.
   I remember back in the days of the space race I was very into it as a young snot. Mom and Dad would wake me at all hours of the late night to see grainy black and white television of Gemin...i link ups and Apollo live feeds of orbits around the moon as we reached beyond the horizon and stood ready to land on the moon. Was it really made of green cheese?
   We were on our families first three week vacation and were headed to Seattle the long way to visit a good friend of Dad's that had moved to the great white north. The long way included Idaho, Montana, Alberta, British Columbia before dropping into Washington. We made it to Battle Mountain, Nevada the first day and visited Craters of the Moon Nation National Monument in Idaho of all places on our trip North. We had made it to Glacier National Park and were in East Glacier when they had landed on the Moon. Being gone for three weeks a laundry day was in order and East Glacier had just the ticket. There was a bar of sorts next to the laundromat and Dad had talked to the bartender I guess and I could peek my head into the side door and see the television at the back corner of the bar and see them bouncing around in grainy wonder.
   When the moon is full and bright I think back to that day. A skinny little eight year old with a fascination to reach to the stars or bounce across a distant celestial body. I think as I look heavenward; we stood there, there are footprints on that surface. I will not get into the arguments that we did not need to go there, or it was fake, or whatever the latest pundits want to vent about. I just gaze upward and remember that day...peeking around the corner of a empty dark bar in East Glacier, Montana...watching a fuzzy black and white television of Neil and Buzz bouncing around an American flag stuck into the surface of the Moon. Where were you?

Sunrises Should be Manditory Viewing.

     A short line about yesterday's ride to work.
    You always see the prettiest sunrises on a motorcycle. You're just a little closer to see the details. The best spot seems to be as I pass the Santa Ana, effluent, feral hog preserve and River; the radiation fog rising from the liquid that passes under the bridge adds to the spectrum of colors yet to come. The sun still is rising to the area behind as I travel northward. The sky changes from dark purple in the west to lighter shades of blue before it intertwines with the pinks and oranges of the eastern high clouds. A streak of white of a contrail of a high distant bound jetliner. And just at the horizon is the rarest of the colors that beautiful turquoise teal hue announcing the coming day. The lights of the morning all the way north lessen in intensity as the sun makes its approach, a morning Southwest flight coming in low over the interstate is up in the air above and the signals of the old Espee blaze red for eastbound trains as I make the high curve westbound for my final sprint to the Ranch. It was a great ride, how could the rest of the day be any less?

My Rescue Project

    Originally posted to FB on February 7, 2014. This post pushed me over the top to do more and start really sharing my written word with the rest of the world.
    Wednesday I left the Ranch early as to be at the Elks for Past Exalted Rulers night. It was still light outside as we slowly traveled south on 15, something told me not to take the Harley that day so I was in the truck. I saw a flag all rolled up with an eagle on the staff, the kind used on motorcycles. That quick instant; I didn't stop, as I rolled on I thought I could back up still. Opportunity lost, it was a great night at the Elks.
     Yesterday it was wet so in the truck again, regular hours. Traffic was slow so I kept an eye out for the rolled up orphan as we slowly migrated south in the rain. The center divider was wide with plenty of room to pull over I remembered from the day before. When out of the shine from the car in front of me was an object that looked about right; there are many objects along the road if one pays attention to the details.
    Over the years I have rescued many flags from along the side of the road and given them a new life flying from the back of my Harley. A life of pride blowing in the breeze after being pulled from the waste and discards that accumulates on the fringe. Sure they get a little dirty and a trip through the wash help, over time they will get properly retired to that place that old tattered flags go. If someone tries to tell me about my tattered flag I respond with my story of where I rescued it from and gave it a loving place and have shown it the world beyond the gutter.
    This time I was stopping, there she was, still there on the shoulder just as she was the day before. I even used the blinker and pulled out of traffic. A quick drill and another beautiful flag rescued to fly again. She's not a cheap flag like the ones flown on cars from a plastic staff when the local team wins a game. She's embroidered and sewn, a classy lady. Somebody lost her, she will fly again with pride; a rescued flag, emblem of Freedom and symbol of unity.

Well, I started my very own Blog.

   First of all I want to thank every one of you that has always thrown in the chime; you should write a book, you should write, you're a (insert here: good, great, cruddy) writer. And to one person who said; I should go to school and learn to write, they did mean it to be that I should learn to write better.
I've written blogs and still do for Joshua Tree & Southern about what we do on the 7 1/2" railroad so this isn't too new. It does open doors that have had feet behind them as I can write truly how and what I feel. You are not going to get too much of a different feel from what I write, it just gives me the freedom of the 'thumb' not being over my head watching that I do not offend someone that I really don't give a shit about their opinion anyway. I grew up with two knobs on a television and radio, one changed the volume and the other changed the channel. If for some reason you do not like what I have to say, do not read it, but do not tell me I cannot say it.

   I have taken to writing short tid-bits on Facebook with a picture to grab the eye. I get many a response, they will continue and I hope to be able to paste them into this. My smarter than I phone is a great medium for me, it is nearby and takes really good pictures for the size. I can punch out a story with one fat thumb with not much effort at all. My interests vary like the shadows on the ground, if it has tits or wheel I like it so you will get trains, planes and automobiles for sure and even heart tugging epistles from somewhere you never would of thought of. You might get tirades or tributes, or just something that caught my interest enough to stop and put it down for you to look into the windows of my soul. And one more thing; in school I sucked at English, who cares what a dangling participle is and I don't know now. I write'em like I say'em. But I am sure if any of my teachers from school are still kicking they would be surprised that I could put this many letters together and get something one could understand. Thanks Herrick and Linville, but I  do think Lambert and Newman had better stories.

    I think you will or have got my point. I am writing this to share my limited talent of putting words down on this modern parchment and to reach further with your wishes that I write a book. It is your job now to share this with your friends that like a good quick read on occasion. The subject will vary as much as my interests in the world around me. I will also pull stories from the past to be able to have all my 'etchings' in one place. It's a brand new world, let's go see where this goes. I expect feedback, and a good word out to more people to see this. As we learned in elementary school after we placed our hands over our hearts...Ready, Begin....