Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just after 3:30 a.m. in "The City."

We have a current temperature of 57º under clear skies. With a wind-speed of 1 mph, it feels like 57º. My DTWS shows 58º.

We have a 40% chance for T-storms, but not until next Monday, so I'll be watering every other day for the foreseeable future.

The sun will rise today @ 6:41 a.m. and set later @ 8:59 p.m.

I heard the train pass by on the RSTL heading south on Tuesday morning, but the return northbound run didn't happen until yesterday @ 11:53 a.m. That's when I actually witnessed the passage of MMRR EMD GP38-2 locomotives 2019 and 2025. #2025 actually sports the livery of the H & E RR, which stands for the Huron and Eastern RR, actually abbreviated HESR.

At any rate, in tow were 23 CHCs, one Red  Tank Car, one Gray Tank Car, 27 DBTCs, and three DWTCs, with one of those having a black underbelly. All cars seemed to be loaded.

I made it a point to add that additional information in light of the info that Adam recently sent to me regarding the Illinois Northern RR is one of the smallest of the vanished Chicago-land railroads. It only had 2.38 miles of tracks and it was the line that serviced the huge International Harvester McCormick Works in Blue Island, IL until Harvester moved its production outside the Chicago area. The line changed hands several times over the years until it was finally abandoned by its last owner, the BNSF once called the Sante Fe RR, in 2010.

Yesterday, we had plans to do many things, but as often happens, I ended up in the kitchen making a hammish and peeling potatoes for dinner.

I also found time to get my new tablet up and running with a lot of help from Mary. I am happy with this tablet, but like all new things, there is a learning curve.

We had our dinner, watched some TV news and also another episode of Downton Abbey.

But soon, my head grew heavy and my sight grew dim, I had to stop for the night. Oops, once again, I was channeling, this time from the Eagles song, Hotel California. That being said, this seems like a good place to insert a link to that song from YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5zyQrDS7G8

I segued to the media room to watch some TV until I decided it was a good time to listen to the Cubs' game on the radio, perhaps one of my last chances this season.

The 10 - 2 Cubs were nursing a slim 2 - 1 lead over the 3 - 10 Royals, as RHP Yu Darvish actually pitched quite well for his second win. The Cubs added some insurance runs in the late innings to cruise to their sixth win in a row, 6 - 1. The Cubs and the Royals finish out their games for this truncated season tonight @ 7:07 p.m. EDT when RHP Tyler Chatwood takes his 2 - 0 record to the mound.

My beloved 4 - 8 Red Sox tripped up the 5 - 7 Tampa Bay Rays in Florida last night for a 5 - 0 shutout. The Sox send 0 - 2 RHP Ryan Weber to the mound tonight in Fenway Park @ 7:30 p.m. EDT versus the 4 - 5 Blue Jays.

The 5 - 5 Tigers had the 2 - 3 Cardinals on their home schedule for a game last night that was canceled due to several Cardinals players testing positive for the Covid-19 virus. No further information is available as of this writing.

Today, I have to get to that watering in the vast gardens and we hope to get to that grooming of Ginger. Neither Mary nor myself had the energy nor inclination for that task yesterday. I would like to finish a crossword too. Mary pulled a Jack early yesterday morning and she couldn't sleep. So she got up as I slept on and she moved to the media room and fell asleep to one of her apocalyptic favorites, the movie Contagion. My normal inability to sleep didn't kick in until this morning, so that's why there was no blog yesterday.

By the by, the fine folks at Google™ have "improved" this blogging site for a better user interface/experience. As Mr. Horse from the cartoon series,  Ren and Stimpy said a few times, "Well sir I don't like it." But as the Trump family has apparently said for a long time, at least according to Mary Trump in her new book, Too Much and Never Enough, "It is what it is." Ciao.