Twisted - Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham

" Twisted" is a  relatively obscure song from 1996.  The song was
written by Stevie Nicks for the Helen Hunt tornado disaster movie called
Twister. As was often is this case, in the 1990's  era of "music
inspired by" but not actually in the movie  soundtracks  you can barely
find the song in the movie.  Stevie Nicks has often recorded stand alone
songs for movies and movie soundtracks, and this one of the best of
those songs.  Even  now, the song is  only available on the soundtrack
album for the movie, although a solo  versions of the song was
released on the  Stevie Nicks, box set, Enchanted, and on 24 Karat Gold.

What I love about this  record  is the  rare chance to hear Stevie and Lindsey
singing together on a excellent song. Stevie excels at backing vocals/
harmonies almost more so than at Lead Vocals and on this record I love
the drama she imparts to "the sun goes down, crazy men, crazy women"
parts at the end.  This song also features Mick Fleetwood on Drums
making it almost a Fleetwood Mac reunion, and this was  one of the
sessions that led the group to decide to get back together in their
classic lineup for 1996's "The Dance" Concert/TV special. Here is rare live recording of the song, with just Stevie on it. Here she does the song  a bit more clearly...with more enunciation on the lyrics....

How big of a model would you have to build to recreate the entire Island of Sodor using Thomas toy trains?

It doesn't appear anybody out there in the blogosphere has asked or answered this  fascinating   question.How big of a model would you have to  build  to recreate the entire Island of Sodor using Thomas toy trains?

I'm not a  mathematician and I know very little about model trains. I am  not sure I have all the proper  variables, but here goes.  A napkin calculation, if you will.

Thomas the Tank Engine's home, the Island of Sodor is  62 miles from east to west, and 51 miles north to south. That converts to a grid of of 3162  square miles including the surrounding sea. The actual land territory of the island would be less than that. Nobody seems to have taken a guess at the actual land area.  The land area would between 1 and 2 million acres. We know the Island of Sodor is about this size because the island is supposed to be able to fit cozily in between England  and the Isle of Man.  3162 square miles is something like 2 to 3 times the size of Rhode Island or half the size of Rhode Island and Connecticut together. There are numerous maps of  Sodor -based on the author's Rev. W. Aldrey's original map. Mapping the island for a  model wouldn't be a problem.

So this model we are  building has to  show every inch of the island, has to to be the scale of Thomas the Tank engine toy trains.  Those trains are said to be of a scale of 1:32 of real tank engine.  So that's 3/8 of inch to a foot. So your model  setup has to be something like 1/32 of the real thing.  

How far in   feet is 62 miles?  327, 360 feet.  A real Thomas train engine would be at least six feet wide and run on 4 feet wide tracks.  The original British WWI era  train (called the E2) that   Thomas based on was 33 feet long.  So lengthwise with no clearance, 62 miles is   something like 10,000 trains lengths.   The main line on Sodor that goes East to West is actually 80 miles long because of curves.  So even allowing for proper  clearances, that's a lot of trains. So imagine this with model trains. Your model has to be big enough to accommodate a rail line that could  line up  10,000 model  trains back to back.

So anyway 1/32nd of 327, 360 feet is 10,230 feet. That's about the distance between the US Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial.   So  the model would have to be nearly 2 miles long.   1/32nd of 51 miles is around 8500 feet.  10230x 85000 =About 86,000,000 million square feet. A 86  million square feet foot warehouse  to house a model of the  island of Sodor would be four times the size  of the world's largest building by footprint.  That does Seems awfully big. About 3 square miles.  When  I calculated it  the first time I got a smaller area, so my number could be wrong  but however   big  the model is it   couldn't  be in a building. So you would have to landscape a park just to create a  outdoor model of the island and spend millions on fake trees, building  models, non-moving people, and  train tracks. To make it look realistic you would have to cover up all the grass, and not have any  real trees. You might have to build a moat to create the effect of Sodor being an island. 

Now model trains, suitable  for  being outside  (so-called Garden railways) are often bigger than Thomas toy trains. So  the layout might have to be even bigger to reflect that.  Can you imagine a little toy train traveling for miles on end simply on batteries? I imagine they can't unless they have some kind of souped- up engine.

A full scale model of Sodor would probably just be too big to build.   Maybe just a portion of Sodor could be built.  Or Maybe you could just CGI the whole thing....

Hey's It's Thomas!

P.S.  The creator of  the Thomas the Tank Engine   TV show, Britt Allcroft is actually a women.
I didn't know that. She hasn't worked on  the TV show for years. I didn't know that  She is very rich-I knew that.

History of the Rockshire development, Rockville, MD

The farmhouse, the pool and surrounding townhouses.

Rockshire is a housing development in the west part of Rockville, Maryland.

The development was built on farmland that was originally owned by Thomas Sprigg Wootton and other Wootton family members. T.S. Wootton  was  the founder of Montgomery County in 1766.  His son,  Richard Wootton owned the grist  mill (no longer extant)  referenced in the Wootton's Mill Park name.  

In the 1800’s the Wootton farm was owned by the Benson family. By the 1900’s the farmland  was known as the Two Brothers farm, and it was under that name when C.C. Veirs became the last owner to run it as a farm.

The farm was one of many dairy farms in the area.  The adjacent property to the Northeast was the Winding Lane  farm owned by the Hurley family-the Hurley-Carter farmhouse is still extant and is located 411 Feather Rock Lane.  Further north on the North side of Route 28 was the  giant King Farm, which was only fully developed recently. 

Two Brothers Farm house

The Two Brothers Farm house is still extant. It can be  found right  next to the Rockshire community pool. The farmhouse was at the center of the original property, and was built around 1880. The  unpaved  road that leads from the farmhouse originally terminated at West Montgomery Avenue.  In the 1900’s the farm was a dairy farm, till the last owner, C.C. Veirs sold all but  1.5 of 500 acres  to a developer  in 1959.  The Two Brothers farmhouse  sat on those 1.5 acres. C.C. Veirs died in 1973, and the farmhouse was sold to somebody outside the Veirs family during the 1970’s.  The Veirs family had  also had other  houses nearby including  the original location of the  A.B. Veirs Paving firm which included the original log cabin built near Wootton's Mill   and a  house built in 1951  that eventually became the Karma Academy(that house burned down recently ). Thomas Veirs owned a house on Route 28 near Glenora Hills (that house was replaced  recently by a commercial property")

Rockshire was transferred from builder to another

Rockshire before development, 1952

Rockshire area 1963

A view of what eventually become Aintree Drive, and Wootton Mill  Park.    (Billy Veirs and Neil Bernstein)

The development of most of the Two Brothers farm land  did not start till 1969.  The Yeonas company built most of the houses of Rockshire in the early 1970’s.  The first development, the building of Hurley Avenue and the houses near the west end of Hurley avenue were  called Tract One.  Tract one  was built in about 1970-1971. Some of these houses are not part of the  Rockshire Association.  '

Surveyor's documents for Eton Overlook, 1969

Tract Two was built in 1971-1972, these were  the  townhouses near Wootton High School.   Tract three were the houses on the East side of Watts Branch which  were built next in 1973 and beyond. Two  further large tract of houses adjacent to Lakewood Elementary were built   in 1974.  At least two other small tracts were built later, these were the luxury townhouses near the village pool, and a  few houses built in 1990  on  part of the old A.B. Veirs property.  
 

The nearby housing developments of Glen Hills, Glenora Hills, were built before Rockshire.  Fallsmead, Carter Hill and Saddlebrook  was built around the same time as Rockshire. Watts Meadows, Horizon Hills, Fallsbend, Cambridge Heights, and Fallswood,  were built afterwards. The Lakewood country club was founded in 1960.  The gas station and the hotel at Hurley avenue and Route 28 bottom of existed   from the early 1970’s on. Nearby Route 28 existed before Rockshire but   was straightened in the 1970’s or 1980’s as was nearby Seven Locks Road.
 

Rochshire area partially developed in 1975.

The adjacent interstate highway 70S predated the development and was fully in place by 1960. The Highway number was changed from 70s to I-270 in 1975. 

Houses in a exit ramp

Originally the highway  exit ramp to Route 28 had actual houses inside the exit loop, but these were eliminated when the bridge over the   exit was rebuilt, in the 1980’s.  In 1989, I-270 was widened to twelve lanes (2-4-4-2 configuration) from the wye split in Bethesda all the way to I-370 (9 miles). The exit on Fall Road was reconfigured around this time.  The long pedestrian bridge at the  Route 28 exit to 270 was built more recently.  The state police barracks (since closed)  and the small  Water gauging  station  in Watts Branch  Park predated Rockshire.

 

Location of Frost and Wootton schools

 

The neighborhood schools were all built originally between 1969 and 1974. Lakewood opened in 1969, Wootton in 1970, Frost in 1971 and Fallsmead in 1974.  These schools have been renovated or rebuilt (Lakewood) since then.  Wootton High School is highly ranked in lists of the nation's best public high schools-and the  high property values in Rockshire reflect that!

Wootton Parkway (originally called West Ritchie Parkway) was built in sections; the  first section was originally the preexisting Scott Drive that starts at Fall Road.  The next  section built  was the section  near the Rockshire shopping center, the bridge over Watts Branch was added in about 1972. The section of  parkway that goes by Lakewood Elementary School was built next, and the part of the road that goes East from Falls Road into Rockville was built much later.   Originally it was thought that the Wootton Parkway would be a divided road, thus the wide road bed (and never used support pylons on the bridge over Watts Branch)  but that never occurred and instead a path was built, now called the Millennium trail.    The two traffic circles on Hurley avenue are recent additions.  

The Rockshire pool was built in the early 1970's at the same time as the development,  the nearby Collingswood nursing home was built in the 1970’s.  

The two other   buildings on Hurley Avenue , were added  a few years after the development was built.   Among them was the Temple Beth Ami which operated in a building near the Rockshire pool from 1980 to 1998 (it  moved to a new building on Travilah Road).  The Korean Presbyterian Church took over that building.  Further up on Hurley Road currently  is the American Latvian Association.

The paths and pedestrian bridges in the Watts Branch park were added in the mid to late 1970’s.  

The Rockshire Village shopping center was opened in 1978 , and the Giant grocery store anchored it till  2012.  The shopping center was originally going to bigger but was downsized in the planning process, plans for a possible post office or library was also shelved in 1980, (instead the luxury townhouses near the pool were built). The shopping center  was shut down in 2015 and plans are to replace it with  houses.   Rockshire is now over 40 years old and has  753 homes, it is one of the largest  and best developments in Rockville.


Related links:
A History of Winding Lane Farm (site of Carter Hill)

411 Feather Rock lane (Hurley Farm House)  

History of the Two Brothers farmhouse  

History of Fallsmead from the Fallsmead website

Why is Veirs sometimes spelled Viers?

 

The sections labeled 41 are Rockshire..

Originally published October 2015, by J.C.Bernhardt

Furslide - Over My Head

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The official video to "Over My Head"  by Jen Turner's band Furslide. Somebody must have gotten paid real money to make this video.  Stick around to the end-it really rocks at the end.

Book review-Giggle More, Worry Less by Dr.Gregory Parkinson.

 This is a new book about parenting. It is written  by one of  my pediatricians (it takes a whole team of pediatricians to take care of my children.) If you judge a book by it's cover-it's got to be good. For who doesn't like green grass and a sunny day.  I like milkshakes too, but I guess they couldn't find a picture of a milkshake.     I haven't actually read the whole book. I can't read, but if I could read I would tell you that  It's a  wonderful book that focuses on new parents and new babies &toddlers.  But anyway, this book must be good, for Dr. Parkinson has got more witty sayings and aphorisms than any doctor I ever met. Here's one -"There are million ways to feed a child but only five really matter."  Here's another: "Children keep you young-but first they make you old."  Must be true for Dr. Parkinson has three children and he still doesn't look a day over thirty even though he has been a doctor for over twenty years.    And if you judge a book by it's cover-it's got to be good. For who doesn't like green grass and a sunny day.  I like milkshakes too, but I guess they couldn't find a picture of a milkshake. Just not Strawberry Milkshakes. I don't like Beer either too much...OK with Sunsets though. Yeah-the article is over. Sure is... Milkshakes-got to love them..

http://www.amazon.com/Giggle-More-Worry-Less-Pediatricians/dp/1508947295

 Dr. Parkinson.

Rant #1-You sent Me Flying

You Sent Me Flying...Well I ranted in response to somebody else's rant on Facebook. I must not be a very good ranter. I got a total of one "like".  Anyway-here's my rant.

I'm tired of unlimited funding for candidates campaigns, I am tired of paying twice as much for health care, and higher education as the rest of the world, I am tired of people being unwilling to pay for the pointless wars we fight, or pay for the roads and bridges we drive on,I am tired of federal intrusion into local schools, I am tired of mid-level public college administrators making 400 grand, I am tired of mass killings in our schools,I am tired of people being expected to be at work 24 hours a day while the French have six weeks of vacation. I am tired of the lack of mutual respect in civil discourse, I am tired of people replacing science with ideology, I am tired of the government spying on me  (but not tired of them spying on you) I am tired of CEO's making hundreds of millions a year , when working class people can't even get paid benefits. I am tired of Republicans and Democrats who are unwilling to move beyond their  myopia on immigration, I am tired of mean spirited radio hosts who spew hate, I am tired of Kim Kardashian, and I am tired of overpriced baseball players and billion dollar stadiums. I'm not sure who to blame all this on-but I think there is plenty of blame to go around for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.

KISS inducted to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and 'Nothing to Lose"

For the past  few days, I  have been fascinated by the music group, Kiss.
Last year they  had some controversy about their 2014 induction
to the Rock and Roll of Fame.  The group's two founders , bassist Gene
Simmons, and rhythm guitarist, Paul Stanley complained about the Hall
not inducting any of the group's non-original members, some of whom had
been with the band for years.  The Hall are only inducting the group's 
original four members, Simmons, Stanley, drummer Peter Criss, and lead
guitarist Ace Frehley.  This is standard practice for the Hall, usually they don't induct
replacement members of a group if they were not  around for a group's most important work.
For example-Bob Welch and many other members  were not inducted with Fleetwood Mac, and Bruce Johnston and  other replacement Beach Boys were  not inducted with the Beach Boys.

Stanley and Simon told the Hall of Fame that they would not perform without  two current replacement members Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer.

It turns out that Simmons and Stanley do not get along well with Criss and Frehley. Criss and Frehley, were both drug users and /or alcoholics during the 1970's and Frehley continued to have problems with substance abuse till about seven years ago. Remarkably, neither Simmons or Stanley drank or did drugs regularly (quite unusual for Rock stars of 1970's ).  But Simmons had a problem with sex addiction and both Simmons and Stanley seem excessively controlling and greedy.   The result of this is that Simmons and Stanley are continuously bad mouthing Criss and Frehley in the press, even when there seems no earthly reason to do so.  Makes for controversy and that in itself keeps the group in the news, and helps sells concert tickets.  

The video above from 1995 (Unplugged )  has all four original members as well as two of the replacements. Yes, and their not wearing their classic  makeup.  As you can see they are actually surprisingly engaging  performers without the makeup and their stage  persona's .

The first lead singer on this performance, is replacement drummer Eric Singer, and the second lead is done by former drummer, Peter Criss, the singer who sang on the band's biggest hit, Beth.  At this point in time, He and Ace Frehley are simply  putting in a guest appearance with the group. They both left the band in the early 1980's and in the late 1990's and early 2000's  would come back for various reunion tours.  By 2004, they were both out of the band again, and the replacements were back. 



This is the  same song with makeup sung in 1974 in this appearance on Dick Clark.   In this version, the song writer, Gene Simmons performs the first lead and Peter Criss does the second lead.

Kiss, were  actually quite popular with teenagers and tweens  in the mid 1970's , though I never took much interest in them.  All those teenagers grew up and now have big wallets, so Kiss's reunions tours of late 1990's and early 2000's   and the  subsequent shows with replacement members in the past decade, have been quite  lucrative.

Their reunion tour a show in Brooklyn, NY doing their anthem, "Rock and Roll All Night".

The performance is exciting, though you can't get away from how inane the actual lyric  is. 
 I  think that  after reexamining their oeuvre I find that my original opinion stands, that they were not among the great musicals acts of their age, but they were better than I thought, and I must say their stage show and that makeup  were and still are pretty cool.