View allAll Photos Tagged Transactional
In October 1988, Rio Grande Industries acquired the Southern Pacific Transportation Company. One of the first symbolic acts that occurred after the transaction closed was the reopening of Northeastern California's Modoc Line to through traffic. In January 1987, SP had mothballed the Modoc between Alturas and Wendel. During the closure, Oregon lumber traffic heading east via the Central Corridor went all the way to Roseville, and then over Donner Pass.
When the Modoc reopened, trains carried an extra road unit or two between Eugene, Oregon and Wendel. This was done so helpers would not have to be added or cut out enroute. The additional power was dropped at Wendel, so it could cycle back to Eugene. In my first visit to Wendel on the weekend after the merger, I watched eastbounds drop a unit before they highballed for Nevada.
In August 1996, I made a final visit to Wendel before Union Pacific took over. The east train I encountered there had a full midtrain helper set that had been along since it had departed Klamath Falls, Oregon and entered the Modoc Line. Just as in 1988, the extra power was set out upon arrival at Wendel.
After the helper set has been removed, the train (symbol EUCHQ) is making an air brake test prior to departure.
In October 1988, Rio Grande Industries acquired the Southern Pacific Transportation Company. One of the first symbolic acts that occurred after the transaction closed was the reopening of Northeastern California's Modoc Line to through traffic. In January 1987, SP had mothballed the Modoc between Alturas and Wendel. During the closure, Oregon lumber traffic heading east via the Central Corridor went all the way to Roseville, and then over Donner Pass.
When the Modoc reopened, trains carried an extra road unit or two between Eugene, Oregon and Wendel. This was done so helpers would not have to be added or cut out enroute. The additional power was dropped at Wendel, so it could cycle back to Eugene. In my first visit to Wendel on the weekend after the merger, I watched eastbounds drop a unit before they highballed for Nevada.
In August 1996, I made a final visit to Wendel before Union Pacific took over. The east train I encountered there had a full midtrain helper set that had been along since it had departed Klamath Falls, Oregon and entered the Modoc Line. Just as in 1988, the extra power was set out upon arrival at Wendel.
In this image, a brakeman is uncoupling the helpers from the front half of the train. They will shove the rear of the train backward, and then cut away so they can be parked on the spur in the foreground. The train will then be reconnected so it can depart.
More food to make your mouth water. I say this because as I write this, the smell of meatballs is wafting up to me from the kitchen.
I finally got the shirt I ordered a month ago on Etsy so I wanted to do a "Wonderland" inspired photo to show it off. Really, combining Alice In Wonderland and a bike onto a t-shirt is pretty much a guaranteed sale from me!
While I was taking this a tiny little baby(?) grasshopper hopped into one of the teacups and I couldn't believe how small it was, I couldn't even get a decent photo of it, it was so tiny!
Pike Place Market, Seattle.
I like the expressions on their faces. They both look really happy to have been involved in this transaction.
Father.
Authority. Protector. Teacher. Provider.
Friend.
Monday morning, my father was dying. His kidneys, those brilliant bilge pumps of the human body, were failing, dumping raw proteins overboard like a shipās captain vainly throwing out precious cargo to stave off inevitable sinking. Death was near, very near: six months, a year perhaps.
āI wonāt do dialysis,ā he explained, āitās not a cure. I wonāt leave you and your brother with a mountain of debt either. That wouldnāt be right.ā
He turned down my offer of one of my kidneys. āYou will need it yourself one day.ā
We are all mortal. We will all die one day. After we emerge from the reckless arrogance of Youth, we know that our lives are no longer a blank check, but a balance sheet where every transaction has a cost and one day ahead a final bill will be rendered. The pithy advice to āLive fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse' was an attempt to game the system and avoid the painful and often humiliating compromises that come with a long and uncertain life.
My father, in his youth, went all in. He was an extreme adrenalin junkie before there was a word for it. Low altitude skydiving, street racing motorcycles, explosives enthusiast; if there was a boundary, he liked to push it - to show the world that limits were tethers reserved for the fearful or mediocre.
My father and mother met in San Francisco, during the summer of 1968, in the wild heart of the counter-culture scene. When Dad and Mum accidentally made a Me (they used protection, but stopped when a quack doctor told her that she was pregnant, with no more diagnostic test than a Marcus Welby-esque pat on the belly. 10 months later, I was born. Sometimes medical incompetence is fortuitousā¦) My parents immediately married ā quite counter to the spirit and mores of the time and place, and my father stepped away without complaint from his reckless youth to take the sober reins of adulthood.
My father got a job with an insurance company doing data processing. In 1969 computers were megaliths of diodes, tubes, and punch cards. Everything was massive and manual and new. Born with an engineerās aesthetic for precision, he appreciated the certainty of computation. 1s and 0s. Black or white. Something was coded correctly and it worked, or it was coded incorrectly and failed. While doing the grunt work of loading tapes and hauling reams of printer paper, he taught himself the ins and outs of programming and quickly moved on another position with EDS, a big data processing powerhouse in its day. Father liked working as close to the binary nature of the computers as possible. Extension languages built on libraries of predefined tasks and actions were anathema to him. It gave him a sense of intellectual self-reliance to be able to start from scratch, to know every input, control the flow of the data, and be certain of the output.
He is also a man of God, profoundly but quietly. Never one for Hosannas and hymnals, his faith is personal and direct in the sense that it is only between himself and God, not worn on his boot or his sleeve. His faith is Jobian, accepting duties and burdens stoically. He has never been a supplicant begging for heaven, only a good soldier handling the tasks set before him, wanting no more reward than to have the strength to do what was right. He taught his sons one, primary lesson: take care of your family. That defines a man.
Understanding the certainty of numbers and God, he has always raged against the autocracy of the incompetent or unjust that hides behind the shield of authority. He has no circuit breaker for stopping himself from calling out a politician, policeman, or employer that was wrong or abusive ā and it has cost him plenty of work (and perhaps some sanity.) I remember, 30 odd years ago, walking along with my father down some railroad tracks in a small town in Kentucky.
I asked him, āWhy are there bad people?ā
āI donāt think there are bad people. God doesnāt make bad people. There are people who do right things and people who do wrong things,ā he replied.
āWhy do they do wrong things?ā
āBecause its easierā¦ā he replied.
āDo you do good things, dad?ā
āI try. Everyday.ā
āWhy?ā
āBecause the only thing you have at the end of your life that stands for anything is your character. If you donāt have that, you really didnāt live your life.ā
āBut I know guys at school who lie and beat up people and nothing bad ever happens to them. Why do people who do bad thing get away with it so much? Why arenāt they punished?ā
āIāve asked God that question a few times myself, son.ā
āWhat did He say?ā
āAsk Him for yourself, son, and donāt be afraid to listen.ā
E.coli-infected kidney stones and family genetics brought Dad diabetes a few years ago. His own mother died of diabetes and renal failure. He watches his diet, moderately exercises fixing this and that on the farm, and taking his dog, Caesar, for a walk up the road and back every day. He tracks his glucose levels precisely and religiously. He spends his nights researching the family genealogy. Itās become his lifeās work, one of the two things he wants to hand down our generations. The other is the land where we live, 200 acres of farmland in southern Virginia that we jointly own. Father watched as hospital bills destroyed his own fatherās estate and vowed he himself would not die as a bankrupt billing item on a Medicare invoice.
So when his internistās lab called him late last week and gave him test results that indicated that the microalbumin protein levels present in his urine were 4 to 5 times the norm, he saw himself facing end stage renal failure. He was dying, now. Soon his life would be over.
Except notā¦
The lab had given him incomplete information and they were not authorized to explain what the numbers meant. Late this week, after the swelter of knowing he was going to die, we went to his internist, a really remarkable physician, who immediately told Dad āWhoa, time out! Time out! You arenāt dying. Who told you that you could die on me,ā and then went on to explain in specific detail that his glomerular filtration rate was very good, and there were no other precursor organics in his urine to indicate an incipient failure. Basically, his kidneys were in fact working quite well for a 65-year-old diabetic. He was not dying. His life was not over.
You really see the character of someone when they face death. Perversely, it is akin to the freedom that Youth alone thinks it possesses, being no longer accountable to the past or the future. My fatherās choice was not to flinch or flee.
He faced death as he lived life ā with character.
66727 wheels the 01:58 Felixtowe North (GBRF) to Selby GBRF container train through Selby and momentarily distracts a commuter from his transaction with a Fast Ticket machine. 27.05.2016
Mantova, Italy
Ā© Brian George
Nikon D300 with Nikkor AFS 14-24mm F2.8 G
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"Ancient Egypt considered the circle to be a symbol of eternity, and the ring served to signify the perpetual love of the spouses"
A day to night transaction during sunset in Kuala Lumpur. All images are from the series of time-lapse photography during the same day. 4 different moment in one picture. Hope you like it.
By the skin of my teeth she is done! Here is my quilt for ALQS4. I'm going to have a hard time sending this one off! :)
Embroidery Design purchased from here: www.etsy.com/transaction/29461737
Featured on Flickr Explore on July 4th, 2010! Thanks! :)
whilst planning for the upcoming Pennine Way I have been meticulously weighing all my belongings, carefully selecting what I will take on the walk, so as to reduce the weight of my rucksack. The biggest dilemma was the camera. I still want to shoot film, but my beloved Leicas are hand crafted from steel and weigh more than a kilo. I turned to my lighter Pentax but with less than 2 weeks to go it developed an issue with the mirror lock rendering it useless.
A quick eBay transaction later I became a proud Canon owner, but still need to check it actually worked. A quick 24 shots on a roll of B&W developed at home (with help from ronet) confirmed everything to be ok, and I can pack it into my rucksack in the knowledge it only weighs 600 grams with lens...
So here is the cotton grass at the summit of Black Hill, one of the test shots.
Last weekend for Hairfair 2016.
Every transaction made at Hair Fair will donate a portion to Wigs for Kids, the charity of choice for Hair Fair 2016. DonĀ“t miss it!
Bandana Day is 31th of July where we remove our hair to show we care. All bandanas sold at hair fair have been created by Residents all over SL and 100% of sales of those go to Wigs for Kids, and are only available for sale during this event, and destroyed after it ends. They will be transfer, so you can gift them.
I wear a Bandana from Baiastice. A must have for every Fashionata!
Sold on Etsy! A darling vintage 1950s cotton full skirted dress in a beautiful woven CHERRY RED & white gingham check.
A must see At Vested Bee Vintage, tons of similar dresses to be listed in the next few months!
A woman buys some political buttons from a street vendor at the 2019 Women's March in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Z, Horse, Dog and Cat with a handmade rug blanket in 1:6 scale by Mr. Z Hanoverian sold by tinytack (www.ebay.com/usr/tinytack) on ebay with a bridle also sold by tinytack by Mr. Z!
Featured in the 1/6 scale barn by Regent Miniatures Ken Haseltine (retired in 2019).
Be sure to check visit all things Regent Miniatures through 1sixth.co site or 1sixthworld.com!
Books and Magazines available on iTunes, Blurb and Amazon!
Happy Trails to you!
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Books on iTunes at books.apple.com/us/book/id1451386070?utm_campaign=prod_ce...
Photos by Steve McKinnis of stevemckinnis.com