This is the tentative agreement between Norfolk Southern Railroad and The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. This agreement is still subject to ratification by the membership.

2008 Tentative Agreement

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The Cliff Notes Version

I know I don’t normally put work stuff here, but this is really hard to find so I thought I’d put it up for guys.

This is going to be a hell of a long post, so I’ll give a recap of the trip and then a fold. If you want to see the tons of pictures and a more detailed description, you can look under the fold for it. Also if you want to see every picture I took check here.

So I had the day off work and we decided to go get some breakfast and run around taking pictures for a while. We have been wanting to go to Cleveland and check out The West Side Market, but hadn’t had a chance when the thing was open. So it seemed like a good day to give it a shot. Jacki also remembered that there was a submarine that had been made into a museum and we thought that would be a fun thing to check out. It turned out that the sub is the USS COD. Who the hell thought that was a good name? So that was the plan. As much of a plan as we ever have for these kind of things anyway.

We grabbed breakfast and headed out. Jacki was reading the DeLorme Atlas and found that NASA had a research facility right on the way. It is supposed to have a really cool visitors center. It’s Glenn Research Center and if you’re going to go there make sure to read their SECURITY INFORMATION. And remember the ridiculous security is for YOUR PROTECTION. So we didn’t go to NASA because we didn’t feel like having our car torn apart in the search. More on that later.

Next, it was off to The West Side Market. This was pretty cool. I think Jacki had more fun here than I did. kinda weird really. I was having an off food day for whatever reason. Lots and lots of meat stands and I didn’t buy one thing.

From there it was off to find the sub. This didn’t go so well. Got a bit lost and found the Brown’s Stadium, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and The Steamship William G. Mather Museum. The only one we actually went to was the ship. We got some good pictures of the others tho.

After the ship we did find the sub, but didn’t go on it as we were out of time and needed to head home to take care of the dogs. So a good trip and more complete info and pictures under the fold….

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This actually redeems Paris just a bit in my book….

Jacki and I went down to Columbus today to do some shopping. Mainly to go to an antique mall that always has a bunch of Jacki’s old camera stuff. As always tho I found some stuff I couldn’t live without. Mainly it was a nice CO2 regulator and tank. Just what I needed. :) It was only $24. Check it out…

We also made a stop at Andersons. I ended up buying one of those silly little kegs of beer. Not really because I wanted the beer, but because the keg had a cute fucking cozy. Damn am I a sucker. So I got this for $14.

So it was a fun day of running around and spending money on shit I really didn’t need. WOOT!

I picked the first of my hops for the year today. This was enough to fill up about half of a gallon bag with. They are looking pretty good despite the Japanese beetle invasion. I am expecting to harvest a lot more still this year.

I’ve got stuff to make 10 gallon of Rye Pale Ale. I’m thinking I’ll make that with at least some of the homegrown hops. I also need to get ingredients for my yearly Blackberry wheat. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Jacki has been having some weird urge to go watch dirt track racing. Well we don’t have a dirt track close, but we do have a Drag Strip right outside town. So we went out there last night to check it out. It doesn’t even cost anything to go. Some pictures and a couple videos….

Ok under the fold is a bit of a rant….

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So we harvested a few Blackberrys for the first time this year. YAY! Looks like there are going to be lots more. Anyway pictures….

And the sexy close up….

Jacki finally has a shop open again! Her Etsy shop is here. Go take a look. I’ll give you a little preview.

Have some patients and I’m sure she’ll get some more stuff up there. Those roving balls she makes are the nicest things I’ve ever spun. *sigh* There is also going to be a website for Gaslight Dyeworks. It’s not much yet, but I’ll work on it.

Some spinning that I’ve been doing lately. This is the seacell/merino blend that I got from Creatively Dyed Yarn in Wooster. Dianne’s roving is so nice to spin and looks so beautiful when it’s spun.

This one is a triple ply that is two plys of CDY and one ply of alpaca that I dyed. It’s 123 yards long and it weighs 7.25 ounces.

Then I ran out of alpaca. So I plyed the rest of the CDY bobbins into a two ply. It’s 210 yards long and weighs 4 7/8 ounces.

I made another LED lamp. This time I used a clear glass insulator and 4 color changing LEDs. For some reason the colors don’t change at the same time. I rather like it that way so I haven’ even bothered trying to fix it so that they are all the same. Also if you want to see version 0.1 look here. Anyway some pictures…

Some video…

I’m going to have a busy day tomorrow. I’m going to brew, Jacki’s dad is coming in town and we have to take all the animals to the new vet. The plan is to take the animals to the vet while my mash is going. That should be an interesting way to do things.

I went ahead and go my starter going and crushed my grains tonight. I’m going to do a Saison. It’s been a while since I made one and I really like them. I’m going to drop some oak in the keg with this one when I keg it. So here are the starter and the grain getting milled…