| Thursday, December 24th, 2009 |
calientra
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1:05a |
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| Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 |
sturmovikdragon
|
5:21p |
Let's Ride NYC Subway: Episode 1 - E Train Queens Boulevard
Well, the Railfan Window Era in New York is almost at an end. If you want to experience the thrill of standing at the front of a subway train as it barrels through the tunnel you'll either have to shell out $50 for a Museum Train ticket or an equal amount for a set of Rich Green's Railfan DVD's...or will you?
That's right, as the cool cars were slowly thrown to the bottom of the ocean I stepped into the breach to preserve a video record of the best runs in the city and they are all available for free on the You Tube. So sit back for the first Episode of Let's ride New York City Subway. Today we ride the E Train in an Budd R32.
( Read more... ) Current Mood:  full |
calientra
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7:25a |
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| Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 |
sturmovikdragon
|
6:46p |
Birthdays Stopped Being Fun
Take me back in time 10 or 15 years and a huge snowfall coupled with my birthday would have sent me head over heels with joy. Now I am just worried about digging out my car and how much longer I can hang out with people at the University before it starts getting awkward. Oh, and my back hurts from shoveling. WTF, that's what happenes to old people. >:-0 I should have gone to one of those Twitter Organized Snowball fights, of course it took a few days for the snow we got in the great 2009 Blizzard to really become nice and packable. Meh, it probably just would have made my back hurt more. Oh, thanks ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) iskreth for the phone call. Current Mood:  blah |
sturmovikdragon
|
2:49p |
PHOTOS: (A) Train Lefferts Time Warp
Remember when the NYC Subway used to be cool? Well I do because a year ago when the MTA's plan to take out a City Equity Loan to finance $1 billion dollars worth of new rolling stock was going into full swing I embarked on a concerted effort to visit the city more and document what was soon to be lost.
Now because most of the RFW equipped cars ran underground most of my documentation efforts came in video form, but when the trains would emerge from their subterranean lairs I could take some pictures the old fashioned way. One of these occasions was on the Liberty Ave el between Grant Ave and Lefferts Ave in Queens. In an ironic twist of fate things got cooler before they got lame with all sorts of fun R trains appearing on the A.
You can see ALL of the photos at by CLICKING THIS LINK or just some of the photos by reading on.
( Read more... ) Current Mood:  melancholy |
xander_opal
|
9:29a |
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| Sunday, December 20th, 2009 |
tkat
|
12:23p |
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| Saturday, December 19th, 2009 |
sturmovikdragon
|
7:30p |
@#$! SNOW!
Hey, don't get me wrong I love snow and people who panic and run to the store for bottled water or show down their transit system are just southern crybabies, but where I work I get paid days off if it snows. If this storm had just come a DAY later I would have had a paid day off the day before I was to leave on Christmas holiday. Ugh, now I have to extricate my car and drive to work ::grumbles!!:: Oh, I also had a somewhat ironic non-storm related power outage from 1am last night to 5:30 pm today. Heard someone cut an underground cable. The local power company revised their fix time from 3am to 5am to 11:30 am to 5pm to 9pm. Fortunately they finally got it right. Current Mood:  pissed off |
inaki
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4:22p |
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| Friday, December 18th, 2009 |
sturmovikdragon
|
5:03p |
PHOTOS: A CAPITOL LIMITED NOVEMBER
So, why have I gotten a year behind in putting my photos online. Well I pin the blame on the size of the memory sticks available to my new camera. While having several cards with 1GB of storage allows me to take a great deal of video, it also permits things like this set of photos which contain over 300 pictures taken from the back of the Capitol Limited as it traveled from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC. In fact counting the other two sets of photos I have posted from this trip I came away with over 500 photos, all of which had to be individually improved in a post production process that added up to many hours of effort. Now I have to invest another hour writing up a useful description for the best of those photos, which few people will end up reading.
I guess someone's got to do it.
So, back to the Capitol Limited. What could be so important that I would end up taking about one photo per mile traveled between Pittsburgh and Washington? Well in fall of 2008 CSX was in the process of converging the last remaining segments of B&O signaled Rule 251 trackage on the Keystone Sub to Darth Vader traffic lights. Moreover on the Cumberland and Metropolitan Subs I felt it prudent to take photos of all the CPLs there just because you never know when some dickhead might feel the need to "improve" things in those places as well.
The trip was largely gray with a few spots of sunlight, but I didn't let this stop me as I had history to document!! I'll try not to bore you too much with some of the more bland signal pix, but I did manage to capture other things as well.
You can see the huge massive collection here:
http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/08-11-10_A_CAPITOL_LIMITED_NOVEMBER/-Thumbnails.html
Give it a click so you can see the result of large capacity memory cards!!
So at this point the only section of classic signaling left on the Keystone sub was between SINNS interlocking near McKeeyport, PA and Connelsville, PA. I had previously traversed this route in 2007 on a trip back from Chicago in June where I got considerably more light, but due to the impending replacement I couldn't be picky.
( Read more... ) Current Mood:  cold |
calientra
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12:21a |
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| Thursday, December 17th, 2009 |
tkat
|
5:45p |
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inaki
|
1:16p |
Avatar Night!
Okay folks! A ton of people have expressed interest in showing up for this, so here's the details! I went and talked with the theater manager an hour ago. Avatar will be shown on two screens, both in Sony Digital4K. Its a 3D affair, so you get the polarized glasses and such. They have a showing on their medium screen at 8:15, and a showing on the huge stadium screen at 9:55. Given folks getting off from work and such, we're gonna shoot for the 9:55 showing, so folks can have dinner beforehand. There are several resturants in the shopping center. A Pizza My Heart is attached to the theater. There is also a Togos, an Outback, and a Buca di Beppo, as well as several others. EDIT: Updated ticket link! Tickets can be purchased HERE. The theater is located in the Pruneyard Shopping Center HERE. This is an open event, so anyone who wants to tag along is welcome. Buy your tickets early though! Also given their lack of parking, I highly recommend carpooling wherever possible! Anyone wanting to do organized dinners beforehand feel free to work out details in the comments. =D |
| Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 |
aylira_tesayon
|
7:17p |
Rave Plans
Salia and I will be in the bay tomorrow (thursday) sometime, staying the night in a Motel 6 in Fremont, then also looking for stuff to do between then and when the rave is on friday. Hopefully we'll get to see some people and have some fun! If you want to catch up with either of us, leave a comment or get in touch with us some other way. We will be driving, so can do things requiring such. |
calientra
|
5:16p |
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| Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 |
inaki
|
9:50p |
Suite Filled!
Thanks to the folks who responded to my FC suite request. It's been filled. =) |
sturmovikdragon
|
6:40p |
Recomendation Retracted
I just wanted to retract a recommendation I gave years ago for the charity Kiva.org. The organization promoted microlending in developing countries by supposedly directly matching donors to the people needing small loans. Well it turns out that the whole matching system was basically faked, and like Save the Children, your money would just go to lower level microfinance organizations which would carry out the actual small loans. Now this in no way means that Kiva is a scam or is non-deserving. but the reason I recommended it was the direct lending system allowed one to help carry out various secondary goals. For example by helping someone open a store that would sell things made by American companies you could help globalization actually benefit our country. You could also invest in pubs in part Muslim nations to help those societies mellow out. Shame that Kiva couldn't actually make set that up somehow. They seem to put a lot of effort into the whole matching system for something that doesn't actually do what it says on the tin. Current Mood:  irritated |
tkat
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3:17p |
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| Monday, December 14th, 2009 |
calientra
|
8:18p |
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calientra
|
7:32p |
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calientra
|
1:25a |
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| Sunday, December 13th, 2009 |
calientra
|
7:33p |
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calientra
|
6:10p |
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inaki
|
12:14p |
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inaki
|
12:10p |
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