Dog drivin' again...

Been running dogs on the 4 wheeler since it started to cool down in mid September. We got 3-4 inches of snow towards the end of the month and winter looked promising, but then it warmed up and all the snow melted in early October. That was fine for finishing summer projects, but not so much for dog training. Now it looks like running dogs with negligible snow will continue for the for seeable future.

Blue Moon...

No, not in Fairbanks, but for someone unlucky, or maybe a little stupid, it was a very blue moon:

A German man mooning at railway staff in a departing train got his trousers caught in a carriage door and ended up being dragged half naked along the platform, out of the station and onto the tracks.

The 22-year-old journalism student shoved his backside against the window of a low-slung double-decker train when staff forced him off in Lauenbrueck for traveling without a ticket, a spokesman for police in the northern city of Bremen said.

"It's a miracle he wasn't badly hurt," the spokesman said on Monday. "This sort of thing can end up killing you."

Instead, dangling by his trousers, the man got pulled along for about 200 meters, all the while managing to keep his legs away from the wheels of the train.

The ordeal ended when a passenger pulled the emergency brake. Rescues services were called in, causing rail services between Bremen and Hamburg to be suspended for over an hour, delaying 23 trains.

The man -- unharmed except for cuts and bruises -- now faces charges of dangerous interference in rail transport, insulting the train staff, and may face sizeable a compensation claim for the delays he caused, police said.

"He was full of remorse when I talked to him," the spokesman said. "And he advised others not to try the same thing."

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE59B4FM20091012

Timber moves...

Finally got around to moving the timbers (Timber 2...Sept 9). First had to weld up a pair of bucket forks to pick up the long timber to get it down to garage. Then was able to roll it into place on some snow machine dollies. Made some slings out of webbing and picked it up off of the floor with a couple of come-alongs attached to the wall. Then got the vertical timbers into place with a handyman jack. Had to do some last minute cutting, as one timber was a little long, but everything went remarkably well and the handyman only bit my hand once. I meant to take a series of photos as the beams were raised, but with the euphoria of the erection, forgot.

The weather has been really mild, in the fifties this past week. Maybe I'll have time to finish a few more summer projects. It's always a little amazing how much work you can get done when you know it soon will be snowing and possibly below zero in the next few weeks.