Several new topics:
1) New PC:
Needed to replace my old 12 year old PC. My son said I could get a nice one for $800 or a really good one for $1200 so I got the $1200, figuring, getting a new one every 12 years, that's only a 100 bucks a year! Went from windows XP to Windows 10. Also two hard drives at a tera byte each, double write to each for back up: used to have to do this once a month on the old PC (no 'cloud' for me: keep everything 'in house'). The system drive is solid state so this thing is really fast. No hearing 'head movement' when browsing the 'web'.
back lighted keyboard and mouse
Neon lights inside the PC with a glass side wall so you can see it. This is a 'gaming' PC. It took awhile to get the old files to the new PC and learn how to use new windows 10, etc.
2) A visit to John's B&O N scale layout.
3) new capacitor discharge unit to help my solenoid switch machines work better.
Quick to install: 2 wires in, 2 wires out: I can 'handle' that!
4) A track current detector. Audible as well as visual with voltage range indicator.
5) more trees. 30 large, 30 medium, 120 small and 80 bottle brushes. Except for the bottle brush trees, these trees are different than the previous batch that I bought in that they have brown plastic trunks and limbs. I liked the previous trees that I purchased with the wire for the trunks in that they can be easily bent which was good for the sides of my cliffs.
The large are about 6"
Medium are about 4"
Small are 2"
The bottle brushes are really ugly but, with foam, they turned out nice, amazingly.
They are pretty uniform so I mangled the branches for some variety. Left (before), right (after).
About an hours work using hair spray and foam. The bottle brushes are left box, top and they are, now, presentable. They came with plastic bases. I left some on, sprayed them with hair spray and added foliage to the base while doing the tree to see how they work by just standing them on the layout. The base comes off, easily, so can remove. I removed about half of this batch's bases. Tried making some aspen trees also with the fall colors. See how those look on the layout. This adds another 'layer' of variety of trees to the layout.
