| Carillon
Trubble Downtown |
| This was the craziest
thing that I ever had happen so far. The other day I was
messing around with the computer, and checking out some things
on the Internet, when I hit a button, and it said, "Click
here for music."
I clicked there, and it went to
some website that asked for my password. I typed in,
"Chocolate," and it said that was the wrong password,
so then I typed in, "Coffee," and then it said,
"Good morning, Clyde."
I figured that it should have
known my name was Sparky, but maybe it was jest messing with
me. Then it asked, "What song would you like me to
play today?"
I typed in for it to play
"Old McDonald Had a Farm," then hit OK. Then it
wanted to know how long to play it, so I typed in "2,"
thinking that that would play it 2 times. Then it asked me
how many times a day and I again typed in "2," and hit
OK.
Then it asked me if I wanted to
change the password, so I typed in, "Chocolate Chip
Cookies," and hit OK.
The thing said, "Thank
You," and the window closed
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The next day, the article above
was in the paper, and now I'm worried that the FBI will be
knocking on our door. I guess they'll be looking for
Clyde, though, so I probably don't have much to worry
about. Anyhow, it wasn't my fault, cuz if they would have
told me that it was gonna change those bells I wouldn't have
told it OK.
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| The
Fish Feeder |
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| Jim
got tired of going outside every day to feed them goldfish, so
Gloria found this here fish feeder that does it
automatically. I think it cost about $200.00, plus she
added a solar battery charger for another $75.00, so now those
$2.00 worth of goldfish won't go hungry.
It
works really great for when we go on vacation cuz that's when we would
have to worry about them goldfish starving.
You can find out
more about it at their website at:
Koi
Cafe Feeder |
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Sparky's
Back Yard
Page 8
by
Sparky |
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You
might have noticed that there was no new back yard
construction news since the last time. That's cuz me
and the old folks went on a vacation to ride a bunch of
trains and check out a bunch of mine tours in Southwestern
Colorado and we was gone for a week. Then I had to
make some pages about the trip, so you ken jest click
here to find out more about that if you're
interested.
| The
Split Rock City Railroad |
|
Featuring
Construction and Operational Information About the
Railroad |
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August 23, 2003, Jim
has been putting in some of the train tracks that he had left over
from a train project at our old house, so when I get up from my
next nap or the one just after that one, I'll go out and take some
pictures of what he has gotten done so far. He will run out
of tracks pretty soon, so he will order some more from the track
store on Monday morning. He
has to put some crusher fines on the dirt where the train is going
to go, and level it with the tops of the stakes he already drove
into the dirt  to show the track grade. Then he takes a
couple of 5' long rails and lays them on the crusher fines bed
after smoothing it out. Then he takes a special track bender
and makes whatever bends it takes to get the rails to fit the
curves and puts the plastic tie strips to hold them in
alignment. Then he has to pour some special acid flux onto
the rail connectors to clean everything up reel good. Then,
with a little sodelering soddering sodlering welding torch, he can heat up everything and make
the sodder stick the rails together and make a good lecktrickal
lecktrishickal power connection so the train doesn't jump and rattle when he runs it.
To keep the torch from melting the plastic ties, he puts a couple
of wet paper towels over the rails and folds them down to protect
the ties. He
worked Saturday and Sunday, and got about 80 feet of track put in
and ready to go. Then on Monday and Tuesday he went for bike
rides and got all tired out, and it was too hot outside by the
time he got back, so he didn't get nothing done in the yard. August
27, 2003, Today is Gloria's
birthday, so I'm not going to do any work
outside. August
28, 2003, I was all ready
to go outside and work reel hard, but Jim went for a reel long
bike ride, and by the time he got back it was too late for me to
go to work, cuz then I would miss my nap. Since
I had eaten a reel good breakfast, like shown in photo #1 below, I
checked out my First Aid Kit that I got cuz you ken never be too
safe when you're doing heavy construction work like I do.
Photos #2 and #3 show the case the kit comes in and the contents
spread out so Ty and I can make sure everything is there.
Photo #4 shows how I installed it onto the back of my Powerful
Steam Shovel for fast access in case of an accident. Photo
#5 shows Jim at Timberline Gardens and the loader is just starting
to dump a half yard of Crusher Fines into the trailer. Photo
#6 shows the Crusher Fines being dumped into the trailer.
Timberline Gardens is reel convenient for us, and they load us up
reel quick. The nice thing about that kind of a load is that
you don't have to tie it down to keep it from falling out on the
street. You can find out more about Timberline Gardens by
clicking on their website: http://www.timberlinegardens.com/ Photo
#7 shows the fish feeder machine that dumps some fish food into
the pond around 5:00 every day. Them goldfish know when it
is almost time to eat cuz they get right under it and start
swimming around all crazy like and bump into each other and crash
into the lily pads. Then the machine buzzes and some of
their favorite food drops out and they all go completely crazy and
race around, crashing into each other and grabbing pieces of
food. Then pretty soon it gets very quiet and they go to the
bottom of the pond and chew up their treat. Then, pretty
soon they start circling again and racing faster and faster, then
pretty soon another frenzy starts and they clean up all the
remaining food. Then that's it until the next day.
What an exciting life!!! |
| Sparky's
Backyard Photo Album |
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1. Always have a good breakfast
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2. Convenient first aid kit
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3. Contents of first aid kit
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4. First aid kit installed
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5. Loader dumping crusher fines
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6. Crusher fines in trailer
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7. Goldfish in a feeding frenzy
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8. Tracks on little bridges
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9. Posing for first train ride
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10. Crossing the twin bridges
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11. Crossing the large trestle
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12. First train wreck
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| First
Train Ride, August 29, 2003 The
track is not complete yet, but we are going to take a short train
ride over the part of it that is complete, using the Powerful
Steam Shovel to pull the cars.
Photo #9 shows us guys posing for a
picture of us getting ready to take off on our first train ride on
the new tracks. Left to Right are: Leroy, Ty, Sniffy,
Spinnaker, Rusty, Dexter, Scooter, Sparky, and Lil Benny sitting
on the Powerful Steam Shovel.
Photo #10 shows how the Powerful
Steam Shovel easily pulls the heavy train and climbs over the
framework of the twin bridges.
Photo #11 shows us crossing the
large, double-track trestle.
Photo #12 shows the first train
wreck at the entrance to the long tunnel. I was driving the
Powerful Steam Shovel, and turned around to remind all the other
guys to keep their arms and legs in and to be sure to duck down
for the tunnel, and the handle on the remote control got stuck and
the Powerful Steam Shovel hit the portal to the tunnel and climbed
up the front of it and flipped over, causing the first 2 train
cars to flop over, too, throwing most of the guys all over the
place. Fortunately nobuddy was injured. The Powerful
Steam Shovel was a little too big for that tunnel, so I had
planned to ease it around the side and over the top, just like I
did at the twin bridges. I'm gonna have to check out that
remote control one of these days, cuz this wasn't the first time
it has stuck.
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August 30, 2003, It
rained outside during the night, so Jim and I are gonna clean up the
workbench and get ready for when things dry out outside.
I'll also take this opportunity to update this website and finish
this page and get it published.
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Dumb
Sign of the Day
We saw this sign at
a little store that rents Video Tapes and DVD's. We was
gonna ask the guy about which is the best way to rewind a DVD, but
he was a big guy that was in a bad mood, so none of us guys wanted
to get into trubble or get vandalized, so we jest kept quiet.
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Copying
a VHS Tape
This picture at the
right shows you how we copy VHS tapes around here, by using Jim's
computer scanner. I already copied about 2 of them, but I
haven't had a chance to play either of them to make sure the
quality is as good as the original. Next I need to see if I
can copy a DVD the same way.
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| That's
about it fer now.--Sparky |
|
| Finnicky
Wasps
You read
about the finnicky goldfish on the previous page.
W ell,
now the wasps seem to be finnicky. Jim put up two wasp
traps a few weeks ago, and in the bottom there is a cotton ball
that you put some special wasp perfume on and it makes them
think it is the ice cream store and they crawl in and then they
can't get back out.
After about a
couple of weeks, you have to clean the trap out and put in a new
cotton ball and pour on some more of the special perfume stuff.
Well, one of the
cotton balls got messed up, so Jim jest threw it away and went
into the house to get another one. Wouldn't you jest know
it, a couple of months ago me and my brothers were playing
around with those cotton balls, you know, stretching them out to
make a pretend beard or mustache, or one of those wigs that the
lawyers in England wear, and we was taking pictures of each
other, and drinking root beer and eating crackers, and in short,
jest having a reel good party.
In the end, we
ended up throwing out all the cotton balls we was playing with,
and then there were no more of them, so we also threw away the
empty box as well.
Anyway, back to
the story about the wasp traps. 
After Jim couldn't find any cotton balls, he jest rolled up a
Kleenex and stuck it in the bottom of that trap and poured on
that special wasp perfume and hung the trap up again.
The other trap
had caught 3 or 4 new wasps within about 15 minutes, and the
other one withthe Kleenex instead of the cotton ball took 2 days
to even catch one. We figgered that since those wasps are
always hanging around the fish pond, that big white goldfish
must have made them get finnicky, too, and they jest refuse to
get trapped in a trap that doesn't have a genuine cotton ball!!!
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Question
of the
Day:
|
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| "If
Jim rides his bike 3 times a week for about 20 miles each ride
and averages 11 miles per hour, how many rides a week will he
have to take to ride 150 miles and average 40 miles per
hour?" (That's how fast those Tour de France racers
go. Maybe that's why Jim wasn't invited). |
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