This Is Drivel

Category: hobby

  • ullage

    What do you call that empty space at the top of a beer bottle? There’s already a word for it that goes back centuries, but I don’t think I heard anyone use one word consistently for it until the last five or ten years when I started hanging around beer brewers, who usually call it… Read.

  • subterrainian

    A dull, dreary day is a perfect day stay in the basement, working on the model railroad layout. I spent most of the day running a subroadbed through a tight curve that will end up at one of the three terminals on the line, and at the very highest point as well. The way the… Read.

  • towering

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    There are five books in a teetering tower on top of my bedside book case. I think of these as the books I’m currently reading, even though I’m only really reading one of them right now: Empire of the Summer Moon. Before my birthday came along I was reading a dozen or so pages each… Read.

  • stars

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    Oh I have just passed a most happy hour watching Brian Cox explain how atoms work. No, really. You may think you don’t have an hour to watch a video about a subject that you think you’ve never been interested in about knowledge you think you’ll never use, but just give him at least ten… Read.

  • occupied

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    I went to visit Caboose Hobbies this afternoon while My Darling B joined The Seansterator in the Occupy Denver march through the downtown area. We split up for two reasons: One of us should have remained “on the outside” in the event, however unlikely, that it would become necessary to post bail and arrange for… Read.

  • ink

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    I’m a huge geek for space flight. I’m not sure why it’s called “manned” when there are women doing it now, and I’m as puzzled about calling it “flight” when it can and often is done without wings, but even so, I geek out in a major way whenever I run across a book or… Read.

  • stuff

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    I just finished flushing out the plumbing from the basement sink again. Thought I’d mention that and get it out of the way. The rest of this post is free of plumbing emergencies. No, really. I should have gotten my hair cut on Saturday but I didn’t because I was too busy doing other things.… Read.

  • depressor

    I thought this was so goddam cool that I had to share it with you. I’ve never heard of stick bombs before this, but apparently they’re nothing new. How can that be? How can I have grown up from a wee little worm, gone through Cub Scouts, ridden a bike with playing cards in the… Read.

  • crossed

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    The track gang has earned their keep this weekend. This was the scene this afternoon at the crossing on the low end of the Lost Continent Railway. With the last of the rails laid through the crossover, the return loop was completed at about three-thirty and the chief engineer, standing on the roof of the… Read.

  • blister

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    It has been a day. Everything was fine to start with. Morning coffee with the morning news, one sucked, the other didn’t. While B got ready to go to the farmer’s market, I threw a load of dirty clothes into the wash machine and cranked it up, then went about the rest of my morning… Read.

photo of the author and the author's best friend