Good Friday Morning all,
I hope all of you had some quality time with your families on this Xmas Day, and I know some of you had to Work before and after Xmas as well, it was probably hectic, some of my Family members did too. A good time was had by all here.
My Neighbors wife who had a major Heart Attack just days before Xmas, has come back out of Unconscious state and the Dr's expect a full recovery for her. Our whole Church had been praying for several days and we ultimately knew whose hands her life was in. I am feel releived for the Husband, I can't imagine being in his Shoes with 3 kids, and not knowing if my spouse was going to come back to me. It was miracle that she survives this heart attack. Mind you she is middle age, in great physical shape, you wouldn't think it could happen to her, looking at her. And he too is in great shape too, Children are almost grown up too. So this is great start for the new year. I'm so grateful for all the blessings in life when you see something like this happen.
Now for for the Weather report, we had a whopping Winter Storm over here Xmas Night, the Storm brought a small twister Tornado, cat EF0, the lowest one in strength, that came off the Ocean and traveled a few blocks, ripping out Trees and I think some fences in the middle of the night. And it was comical, some of my California counterparts, asked, do we really get Tornadoes in California, and answer is yes when conditions are right. We have had some off shore and land based over the years. Some times the Weather folks can't determine if there was actual Tornadoes in the spots reported, but I can tell the Residents knew by the strong train rush sound of wind, and their Patio Covers, Furniture, Rubbish Cans, and who knows what else, that end up miles away in someone else's back yard. That is a sound and event that if you have never heard or experienced, you don't quickly forget.
So this Storm, for whatever reason stalled over So California, we have seen this behavior in Los Angeles area before, when huge flooding occurred, a Storm Thunder Cloud Anvil Topped, sat for I believe 1-2 hours and just pounded the LA area with several inches of Rain, it was amazing. Our storm Stalled in the middle of the night, and powered up, producing at least 2 small twisters, one in Ventura and the other in Orange County area. The latter, didn't quite touch down, I believe, but Trees were moved
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=storm+weather+in+california
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weat...ip-up-travel-trouble-central-us-this-weekend/
I am happy we got this Rain, our area has been so dry through this year, and no Rains in OCT NOV to speak of, but December rolls in, and we got hammered with Rain. Another Storm is scheduled for Monday, so at least we get 3-4 days to dry and absorb what we have.
Here is a link that shows our Snow Covered San Gabriel Mountains, this is the best we have seen Snow in our local mountains for a few years with all the Drought and Heat we've experienced. Ironically some of you in Midwest have seen some higher than normal Temps in some areas, in the last few days.....
https://www.latimes.com/california/...-rain-and-mountain-snow-thats-closed-freeways
OK now on to Trainz,
I have downloaded a few new Sounds, Locomotives, and UMR2020 Route,
<kuid:95512:100931> UMR2020 by Author and Route Builder "neilsmith749" here are his recent Notes below, about the changes etc.
This version has about 15 new miles of mainline track, and one new town. The update was mainly to provide a bunch of fixes to scenery, signalling, bridges, miscellaneous problems, and completion of a number of track-improvement projects.
I plan on exploring the new version (2020) am holding the previous one (2019), to see what is different with this new one. It is a large Route, very well done, and lots to explore and play with. It just works OK with my Laptop for now.....4Megs of VRam with Trainz only goes so far, allowing for Battery Capacity and Run time.
Speaking of which,
I bought my External Drive Boxes to house the new M-2 and regular SSD 2 Tera Drive's I will purchase from Crucial Memory next week hopefully. I still have hard drive space left, but my Primary Drive M-2 is almost 2/3rds full now, it is 235Gigs out of 256Gigs total size drive, which was OK a year ago, but you know how easy it is to fill your Storage space up with all the large Files, New Programs etc. I use a Dedicated Drive (D) for Trainz and PEV Utilities Etc, with the Rest of IOS and other programs residing on M-2 for quicker Access and Boot up times. It works extremely well for me.
When I bought my ASUS ROD Strix laptop a year ago, after surviving an HP integrated GPU onboard Video Chip, I never looked back!
The pictures and Graphic's quality of this newer system, with 1050 Gti NVIDIA, 4Megs of VRAM along with M-2 SSD, was a huge improvement over what I had. Of course the second drive was conventional Platter One Terabyte 4200RPM Western Digital, a bit slow, but I had my Trusty EVO970 Samsung SSD, with Magician Software for excreased read and right improvement, like a Gas Engine on Nitro, those who drive fast cars, race-cars etc, know what I am speaking too....LOL
For Next Year:
Purchase M-2 and 2 Tera SSD
Reinstall PEV's AssetX I did something wrong in the order of Installation between AssetX with other PEV's Tools, so I have some operational issues where Images, and other Modules don't launch or can't be found when I run AssetX tools......
I had the guide in which order to install the other Tools, but somehow lost the Notes I had when I changed Laptops......Actually I use Microsoft One Note and I really like it. Only problem was, with new Computer, I had a Version problem between old and new, so some of my Files wouldn't convert over. A problem with this and similar programs in Software Versions......
Wished I had known this before I got rid of my old Laptop, what a not so nice surprise......
The earlier program was 5 yrs or older.......We have had this issue with Graphics Program updates too, where a project Mr's Blue had made, couldn't be imported into the newer versions of Software. She was extremely perturbed that some of her design's would have be recreated and recolored over, think of Mesh issues with Trainz with newer Versions, like TANE and TRS2019. Of course
Think of Trainz Versions issues, and import issues, all relative I think in the same sense.
Trainz: Plan on cleaning up my Assets that are too dated. Especially the ones with Mesh issues, which I cannot Fix (above my pay-grade).
Start a spreadsheet with all the Routes I have, see which ones I really shouldn't keep any longer......This will take some time. So easy to acquire Routes.
Buy some new DLC Routes and Rolling Stock Packs from various Creators.
And then of course, I have lots of House repairs to accomplish. All in all, I think my year is full with lots to see and do.
With that and much gratitude to this Forum, with numerous help and support from fellow members,
I thank all of you who have come by to visit here and wish all of you a healthy and prosperous New Year.
(My apologies for not Posting pics this round, I have to go out and do some things before the Sun Sets.)