Brother Frank visiting from Katy. Clockwise from top, at the fountain up the road, at Humble Kitchen food cart in the Harmony Parking Lot, and at the new Brattleboro Food Co-op.

Lee posing with Frank Stout’s “Nursing School Graduates” in the lobby at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital. The combination of caps and mini-skirts lets us date this painting pretty precisely to the mid-70s. We first heard of Frank Stout earlier this year, unfortunately by reading his obituary.

A family of geese on the Connecticut at dusk.

Exhibit a, the Frontier Restaurant t-shirt that we snatched out of the window at Boomerang.

Exhibit b, Lee and her photographer atop Mt. Wantastiquet.

Seen at the Brattleboro Food Co-op

Santa’s Land
Putney, VT
1957-2011
RIP

Today we ventured all the way to Townshend to hear a presentation about a new model railroad being developed as an educational tool to tell the story of the 36 miles of trouble West River railroad. Perhaps the most striking thing to say is that the room was filled to overflowing.

Le Bar

We ditched the original idea of roll top upper cabinets from Ikea in favor of open glass shelves (from Home Despot) which we installed today.

Indy, 2 views

In 1899 Albert R Worm, meatpacker, built his thoroughly respectable building less than a mile from the Capitol. Today it sits empty, across from a giant empty refrigerated warehouse.

More recently, the muscular and monument-laden downtown has merged with the Indiana University area. Big new buildings, redeveloped canals with bike trails, condos aplenty, you name it they got it. The only constant …

Tie one on

Living atop train tracks is way more good than bad. Earlier this week we were treated see an amazing choreography of maintenance.

Last year sometime the RR dropped off bundles of glistening new ties at intervals along the track. Then last month somebody came along and marked some of the existing ties with spray paint.

To replace the bad ties takes about ten specialized machines and maybe 30 guys. First a spike puller, then a plate loosener, then a big machine to grab and lift the rail and slide the ties out to one side.

A little crane comes along and picks up the old ones, then another to place the new ones. Each vehicle is followed by a guy with a hammer or a crowbar to clean up.

New ties are slid into place, fastened a few different ways, soil is compacted. The first train rolled across just a couple hours later. The next day an alignment machine came along, they smoothed the gravel, and presto, it was like nothing ever happened.

I’m thinking about this whole process in the context of my own work, which seldom if ever seems so smooth as these guys did. Lots of people using specialized tools, all performing a very specific function in sequence. Presumably at a profit. There must be some lesson in that. Oh yeah, the industrial revolution.

A family of geese hanging out in the Massachusetts sun whilst I paced around outside the hotel conference center doing that cell phone thing.

I’m so tired

Outside Lynde Motorsports, where the wide variety of dead tires matches their eclectic portfolio of projects. The perfect motorcycle shop for here.

Mise en place

We stopped in for a restorative cocktail at Fireworks. Lemon, lime, cherries, orange slices, no problem. Strawberries, olives, ok. Mint and basil leaves, and on and on. These frou-frou cocktails (Earl Grey infused vodka and St. Germain, anyone? No? Then try tequila, muddled strawberries, balsamic, and bitters…) are a great show, and taste pretty good, too.