Tuesday afternnon

A line from a Beetles song (I think).
But anyway, as today was election day and yes, I voted locally, I was off from work.
With almost nothing else to do while my wife was at work (snicker, snicker-ha ha!!) I decided to take a run up to Oyster Bay and put an hour or two into finishing up #35's frame.
Needlescaling isn't an art form but rather a tedious and boring job. However it is anything but mind numbing, maybe forearm numbing, but not mind numbing!
I arrived around 11 and set up the compressor, hoses and gun. Then I just dove right into finishing up the boiler mounting plate that was "the only" thing left to needlescale. Or so I thought!!
I took a few moments to thoroughly inspect the frame from the buffer plate at the rear (under the cab) and noticed that no one worked on that area so I took the paint and crud off of the buffer, buffer frame and rear frame of #35.
I continued my examination of the firemans side and saw a few small areas that were overlooked and took them down to bare metal as best as I could both inside & out and all the way from the back to the front of the frame. I proceeded to do the same thing on the engineers side taking off any stray paint or crud as I went along. SO, my hour or so turned into a 4hour work session attended by all 3 of me, myself & I!!
I wouldn't have it any other way. It sorta reminded me of the old days when we were younger and just starting out in Mitchel Field. Any day off from work was an excuse for me to get dirty.
I went back to the visitors center to clean up and stopped to watch our new neighbor working on his motorcycle shop across the street. I met up with our neighbor right next door at the health food shop and stopped to chat over a great cup of organic coffee. Firi (the owner) and I conversed about things on the street for a while, then I bid her a fond farewll and came home to Baldwin.
Saturday marks the end of our compressor lease and while we will have to return the unit, the rental shop is working n a plan to get us a good price on  the purchase of this unit. Stay tuned for this one!
When we return this coming Saturday, we will need to finish up priming the bare spots that I created today and will (hopefully!) finish up the needlescaling of the drive wheels. As I have previously stated, we will have to use our small air compressor to needlescale the tender trucks the 2 weeks after this weekend.
I have to ask, is anyone reading my blogs?
If you are, please make a comment. I spend quite some time blogging about the volunteers activities both here on our site as well as on the 2 LIRR forums, yet, no one here says anything.
After putting in a long and painful work day on Saturday, I (usually) come home and blog immediately while things are fresh in my mind, then post the results of the workday on bothe forums. It can sometimes take up to 2 hours if there are a bunch of photos as I first have to download the photos from my camera or Blackberry to my computer, then to Photobucket then try to remember how to post the photos to the blog and forums. Not an easy task I must say!

And just to make sure that I say it--- I forgot to bring up the new jack!
Yeah yeah. I know, what a maroon!
I did however try to pump up the jack that is there and found that I couldn't so maybe, just maybe, it might hold until Saturday (?) !
Gary