Blogzilla

I was going to blog on Sunday but I was out and pretty busy. It was, as everybody knows, a solemn day in the United States. It was also a solemn day in Massachusetts as 206 of our citizens perished on that day. The two planes that hit the towers took off from Boston. Funny it was a beautiful day weatherwise, just like it was ten years ago. I know everyone knows where they were when it happened. I imagine it was similar to the Pearl Harbor attack 70 years ago. As I said I was going to write yesterday but I just couldn't get it together.

I also had pictures and clips that I had taken on Friday when my friend Dave and I went to the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kenebunkport Maine. I always like to take the time to sort through the the pictures and clips. Some pictures might need to be strightened or maybe enhanced a bit due to lighting conditions. It's never good to shoot into the light. The light is behind the subject and it appears darkened because the light is shining on the back of the subject and it appears darkened. Sometimes you have no choice if you want a picture of something and the sun is behind it. Anyway the museum is about 90 miles north of here. It was interesting as they had trolleys and buses from all over the country and different parts of the world. Some where restored to their original shape. Others were in the process of being restored and others were just wrecks either waiting for future restoration or being canabalized for parts.

These are all the extra wheels, if thats what they call them, and axles that have been collected.

The actual grounds of the museum were nothing to write home about. So I didn't. We did take a trolley ride around the grounds but it was really nothing more than a half an hour ride through the woods. There are a lot of woods in Maine. They stopped the trolley car twice and a man dressed as a period conductor gave a couple of talks on the history of trolleys in the area and on the very trolley car we were riding in itself. At one point in it's life it was taken out of service and purchased by a doctor who turned it into his office. After he died it fell into disrepair and was purchased by the museun in 1957 and fully restored.

Built in 1924, in service in Ohio, it was retired from service in 1947.

Since the closest big city to the museum is Boston there are a lot of trains and buses from the local transportation system. Buses, trolleys and trains that I remember from growing up. Who knows I could have even ridden in some of these vehicles. They even left the destination scrolls on the front of the buses and trains and trolleys in place showing locations that I am very familiar with. Other vehicles came from other parts of the country and other countries like Australia, Germany and England. Later year vehicles from this area had a T in a circle as an identifying marker. For short we call the rail and bus system the T, The MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority) Later buses were and still are, yellow and white. The older ones were various colors depending on the line on which they ran. The Orange Line, Blue Line and Green line etc. The lines are still called the same but the buses are now the same color. There were a few buses  up there that are still in service down here. I don't know why they're on exhibit as they are still current.

OK I'm getting really long winded here. To wind things up I ended up making a little movie of our ride and a picture book sort of movie out of the pictures because here unlike Spaces, there is no no free photo album feature. You only get so much free photo space on Blogger then you have to pay for extra space on Picasa. Besides some of my old friends from Spaces that I miss I also miss the seemingly endless photo album space they provided. That was the best thing they provided. Though I will say the photo album section is still running but what's the point if nobody looks at them. I have done next to nothing over there since the blogs were shut down. I do miss it. It was fun. However I do like the simplicity of Blogger. Well I am really blathering on now. As Groucho Marx once said, " You haven't stopped talking since I got here. You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle." Yup I'm showing my age.

So first we have the video of the ride on they trolley then the video/picture album of the photos. Not as good as looking at big pictures but it saves time and space on the freebie space Blogger provides. I spent a good chunk of time putting these together. Finding music that fits both the content and the time and making the video file small enough to fit the 100 megabit limit isn't always easy,  and is time consuming but I have fun doing it. One cool thing on the first video is that the whistle on the trolley is in the same key as the music. It's the key of E in case you're interested.

Man this blog took a long time! I guess I'm just overcompensating for not blogging or commenting for a week. Alright I'm done.

I'm outta here.