Archive for April, 2009

We are having beautiful weather in Vancouver today! At 2:30pm the temperature is 72 headed for 75. The sun is out and spring is really springing as trees all over the area are greening up! The next few days should be fabulous too so I’m expecting some foamers to be out.

This morning’s train watching was pretty good with fabulous weather and decent train traffic including a bit of an unusual Sunday move. UP’s Z-LCSE rolled off the Columbia Draw just before 10am. This train usually works Brooklyn on Sunday morning which means it doesn’t pass through Vancouver until much later. It was nice to see the Z train in Vancouver for a change.

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, spring, vancouver, washington, union pacific

It always seems to take a major disaster to get people’s attention. I’m no different. I’ve been putting off creating a household inventory for, oh, 20 years now. After a good friend and his wife had their camera gear stolen from their vehicle I decided I’d better take their advice and put together an inventory of the gear I use when I’m railfanning.

Using the KISS principle I threw together a simple spreadsheet that contains the columns shown above. I then methodically proceeded through the camera bag documenting all the pieces including CF cards, extra batteries, remote cables, and lens hoods. I obviously included serial numbers where applicable. In many cases I filed away the original receipts in the fire safe so I pulled those out and documented the date of the receipt so I could locate it quickly.

After an hour and a half I had a complete inventory of my camera and radio gear that I use while railfanning. Its not a household inventory but is one step towards one. My hope is this data slowly rots in the fire safe and I never have to use it. If I do need it though I’ve got it all in one place.

How’s your inventory?

Technorati Tags: train, railroad, railfan, photo, gear, inventory