Content creation during a pandemic.

MP242 said:

I think I'll even shave, and shower today And put on some After Shave cologne, (and deodorant).

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WHAT ?! Where are getting all that energy from ?

...and I agree. Google Earth is the best way to travel right now.

Dinorius_Redundicus said:

Good to hear from you again Jim. Lovely grand old building there. Let’s hope we can all escape those giant spooky coronas!

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Thanks Deane. You're screen shot was awesome. That setting reminds me of my travels through north-central Colorado sugerbeet country (much of that area now is being used for condo's for people fleeing crazy California). Over a decade ago, I was inside the old Loveland Feed and Grain building taking pictures. When I previewed the pic's, I found a bunch of orbs floating around in one room that contained a large grain hopper to catch the grain coming down the chute. Then I find out that someone, years ago suffocated in there, from being buried by grain ! ........I hadn't thought of those pics since I saw your corona-orbs floating around those silos.

Thanks JC, I'll keep up the pursuit. I'd like to see them again too.
Good day to stay in and keep warm.

Javier,
Thanks for the cool looking bar. I love the night shot - it is so neat!

Heinrich505

Hello Trainz members,
At first I really thought that this Coronavirus pandemic was an over exaggerated hoax and now realize the situation is very serious.
At the moment not using public transport at all, and stay at home as much as possible until further instructed by our world leaders and authorities who are managing the crisis.
At least we have the internet for communication and entertainment purposes whilst stuck at home.
Michael Davies
davies_mike57

davies_mike57 said:

At first I really thought that this Coronavirus pandemic was an over exaggerated hoax and now realize the situation is very serious.

At least we have the internet for communication and entertainment purposes whilst stuck at home.

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I have a sister who is in total denial - "it is all a media beatup" and "a load of BS". Unfortunately there are some local radio "shock jocks" who are pushing that line, all of whom I would not mind seeing contracting this disease and ... (I will take that thought no further).

An interesting article on my favourite and reliable news feed gives a good set of comparisons between Covid-19, SARS, MERS, Ebola, common and Spanish flu at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-22/covid-19-how-deadly-and-contagious-is-coronavirus/12068106 all based on reliable medical and scientific sources.

As for my "mental wellness" - I have lots of books to read, a library of over 300 movie DVDs and dozens of full box sets of TV shows (mostly Sci-Fi) and, of course, Trainz to keep me occupied. I suspect, as per usual, that there will be nothing worth watching in cable TV.

I am currently watching the HBO miniseries "Chenoybl", perhaps not the best choice for the current crisis. But it gives a good insight into how incomplete and faulty information, misinformation, outright lies and politicians believing ideology over reality can make a bad situation much much worse - all of these things I can see in play around the world today, including here.

Enough gloom. I intend to make the most of our isolation.

Heinrich505 said:

Javier,
Thanks for the cool looking bar. I love the night shot - it is so neat!

Heinrich505

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Hi Heinrich, thanks for your comment.
I hope people want to repaint the bar in versions of their countries.
By the way, I was always more of Pepsi than Coke :hehe:


Greetings, Javier

Learning at home

Have to stay at home so decided to learn something about PBR materials and texturing.......enjoying it so far.

There are advantages to living in Wyoming but there are downsides. I'm in one of the average sized towns on I-80, which means the SARS-CoV-2 vectors have motored down that interstate for quite a while. For those of you unfamiliar with where I-80 is, it traverses the lower 48 from coast to coast at a little above the midline of the country. To say it has heavy traffic in normal times is an understatement. From what I heard recently, the traffic is down considerable but semi-truck traffic is still strong so it sounds like person vehicle travel is down. The winter weather has shut I-80 down across Wyoming a record number of times this winter which has put a whole bunch of vehicles in the I-80 towns for days at a time. I have no doubt the virus is in WY in way more that the reported case but the testing hasn't caught up.

Speaking of all the testing and deaths, PLEASE don't get caught up with the mortality rates that use the reported number of cases and the deaths. From ALL indications there are many, many more case of COVID-19 out there than those confirmed mainly because there are many asymptomatic and pauci-symptomatic cases that are never caught with tests. The mortality rates HOPEFULLY will be more in line with a bad influenza season.

BUT, the virus can be DEADLY to those vulnerable population. And that's the problem; all the asyptomantic and pauci-symptomatic infected people, i.e., vectors, spreading the virus to the ones that will have a hard time with the disease.

Plus, life goes on. People will be afflicted with normal maladies and accidents; heart attacks, strokes, home accidents, poisonings, broken arms or legs,etc., that require medical care. Let's hope most areas around the world heavily affected by the virus don't have to turn away (like I've heard has happened in some parts of Italy) the normal emergency traffic.

Oh, yeah, you can't eat toilet paper. It took the toilet paper hoarding freaks around here about three days to finally find the canned food isle. Fools.

No problem here with social distancing as I've been divorced for 30+ years and the last kid graduated HS 18 years ago. I've been retired for 12+ years so no work to worry about. I buy groceries once a week and I'm lucky to see more than a couple people on my daily walks and they are mostly on the other side of highway. A hermt you say? No, just have plenty to do a home and entertaining myself is plume easy with the vast interests I have.

All you stay safe and well (looking at you KotangaGirl, JCitron, et.al. !)

Great info, Don and HELLO Wyoming ! I spent some time there in my youth up in Gillette. When living in north Colorado, I'll always remember "The Cloud that Ate Cheyenne. " ..in 1985...the biggest thunderhead I've ever seen in my life you could see from miles away, shooting lightning out in all directions.

Here's some more shots of that house, the Humphrey Estate / farm that's been around since the 1800's. When doing my route, I can use many old homes from one town to the next from that period, but there's certain homes / structures that are landmarks and too unique to pass by. This little area from Remsen, NY is one of them.
Remsen was a big rail hub back in the late 1800's, early 1900's, served by the Utica & Black River RR (later absorbed by the NYC) and the Mohawk & Malone RR. It once had 19 spurs / turnouts for local business / industries, including a stockyard, coal yard, milk plant / station, feedmill, lumber yard, cold storage facility and a limestone quarry in near-by Prospect, NY . With so much happening here, this town has kept me busy trying to re-create it.
This pic is right on the south border of Remsen Village.

I added some flower bushes to spruce her up. Thanks to the content creators for making these ! I lucked out that many of these are native to the area.

Added the carriage house last night

Still need to touch up the ground textures , the columns....and looking at my watch, it's time to post another pic after this one and keep working on this.
looking at

The last one for now. Looking South East toward Main St, where the border of Remsen is with Trenton.

I like that house and landscaping. It reminds me of the big mill owner's houses up on Mill Street around the corner from where I live now.

"The Cloud that Ate Cheyenne. " ..in 1985...the biggest thunderhead I've ever seen in my life you could see from miles away, shooting lightning out in all directions.

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This would be a huge beast of a High Precipitation (HP) Super cell. They tend to be very big, nasty storms, that spin like crazy, spit out tons of rain, hail, lightning and also tornadoes. They can grow up to 90,000 feet, 27.4 km, 17 mi as they punch through the upper layers of the atmosphere. The hail from these storms can get quite large. I've witnessed baseball and grapefruit size hailstones punching out windshields, side windows, flatten cornfields, and sadly injure animals.

The lightning is truly an amazing sight to behold, and something to really respect. Here's a time lapse to a storm I saw on a live stream last year. The storm spun up out of nothing on the CO, KS border near Goodland, and then grew and produced multiple tornadoes, hail, and this lightning show. The storm finally collapsed 10 hours later near Scott's City.

https://youtu.be/1kYWmphCkvs

You're right John, that was a big nasty storm. I'd never seen lighting shoot out of a cloud and go up instead of down. It was like watching a science fiction movie. That storm did sprout some tornadoes in Southern Wyoming into Nebraska. One thing I liked about Colorado was we'd get some great light shows in the spring, but the Cloud that Ate Cheyenne was one of a kind, at least in my experience. As you know, you don't normally hear about the causalities and property damage because those areas were are flat with low population density...although some places in northern Colorado have grown a lot in the last 20 years that used to be farm lands and fields. I always worry about the farm animals left out there. The KS / CO border is a good place to avoid in the spring, as those are some of the most threatening looking skies I've ever seen, and I've been caught in a couple, having to take shelter at convenience store / gas station overhangs,.when you can find one out in the middle of no-where when it's pouring so hard you can hardly see past your windshield wipers. Burlington, Co was one I remember. It sounds like you know your cloud formations pretty well !

Here's a good ol' stretch of mill buildings from Remsen.

Now I was trying to explain to these two gentlemen about the dangers of chewing tobacco and how that could help spread the Coravirus. The fellow in the rocking chair said " i've got your Cornavirus right here, son"...and then he shot a straight stream into the spittoon. I left as his friend unleashed some colorful oaths.

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JimDep said:

Great info, Don and HELLO Wyoming ! I spent some time there in my youth up in Gillette. When living in north Colorado, I'll always remember "The Cloud that Ate Cheyenne. " ..in 1985...the biggest thunderhead I've ever seen in my life you could see from miles away, shooting lightning out in all directions.

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Ha! Jim, I was born and grew up in Gillette and graduated HS in 1969. Go Camels! I believe it was a storm in about 1981 or 1982 when my wife at the time and I were doing a camping trip and had left our two kids with the wife's parents . . . . in Cheyenne. The Grandparents had a townhouse at about Central Ave. and I-25 so they weren't in any danger of the flooding of Crow Creek. Nasty storm, indeed. We were living in the Denver area at the time so the Grandparents were easy to get to for "baby sitting".

Also, I went to college in Laramie, Univ. of Wyo. The wife and and I were, again, traveling back to Laramie from a camping and backpacking trip the day the Big Thompson Flood occurred (in the summer of 1976 I believe). We were coming into Laramie from the west on I-80 and I still remember that huge gray-green cloud hanging over the Front Range (that mental image still there to this day). I commented that it was a nasty storm. We learned the next day just how nasty it was.

Anyway, take care and stay safe,

DWBennett55 said:

Ha! Jim, I was born and grew up in Gillette and graduated HS in 1969.

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I was in Gillette in the late 70's. It amazed me how much the population fluctuated depending on how the mining industry was going. From boom-town to ghost town and back again. At least that's how it seemed to me. In September, you could smell the processing of the sugar beets from the old factory.
Did you ever visit the nightclub at the Holiday Inn back then ? That was a NICE Holiday Inn. Crazy 2 level dance floor made of clear plexi glass. complete with a tube-slide so you could slide back to the ground floor. Next door., in the same parking lot IIRC.....I think it might have been a Best Western, they had a Piano player named Carl who played the old rag time stuff while people threw peanut shells at him..........good times. Really nice people there .....huge people, both men & women ! I'm over 6 ft and felt like a midget. Devil's Tower was fairly close too and that made for a nice hiking area on the days off. I really liked Gillette.

UPDATE: I was wrong about Carl the piano player being in Gillette. He was in Grand Forks, ND......where I also worked around that time 40 some odd years ago. I need to keep my memories straight on people and places.

DWBennett55 said:

Also, I went to college in Laramie, Univ. of Wyo. The wife and and I were, again, traveling back to Laramie from a camping and backpacking trip the day the Big Thompson Flood occurred (in the summer of 1976 I believe). We were coming into Laramie from the west on I-80 and I still remember that huge gray-green cloud hanging over the Front Range (that mental image still there to this day). I commented that it was a nasty storm. We learned the next day just how nasty it was.

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I wasn't living in Colorado yet during the '76 flood. When I moved there in 1984, all along Hwy 34 going from Loveland up to Estes Park, you'd still see the foundations of homes and ruined structures in the Big Thompson canyon. It's amazing how high the water got and there was really no escape, other than UP. Yeah, that storm system just sat there dumping so much water into that funnel through the Narrows. Anyway Don.......hello to Wyoming and you stay safe too.