THE ORVILLE!!!

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Roger, Interests change. Sometimes, folks want to eat Chinese food; sometimes they want pizza; sometimes a big fat burger.

Model train collections fill up. Layouts get completed or, for some hobbyists, re-done, even a number of times.

Roger, I can remember, at one time, reading you state, here, on more than one occasion, that you applauded the occasional thread-drift and variety of topic explorations. However, perhaps, now, your preferences have changed and you want to re-focus on trains and layouts. That of course can be a good thing. I have found some of the discussions and the sheer variety of them on the OGR Forum to be interesting and worth often contributing to.

For me, my layout was completed long ago, and I rarely run it nowadays. It has almost become an artifact in my life, though I do imagine I will be running it for guests this Christmastime. I have tried on a number of occasions to share photos on this forum, and have not found much interest, except for you and Chuck, and I get a little weary of having my word choices and spelling corrected here, and I don't react well to being scolded or condescended to, all of which is, however, okay with me. Things change. People's interests change. So be it, IMHO.

I agree with you about some of the attitudes and aggressive talk and counter-talk that seems to get inspired here, at times. I am ashamed that at times I have allowed smart-mouth remarks get me so aggravated that I have gotten unpleasant in return. I am not proud of that. I have vowed to get better control.

Yet, despite the couple of fight-cats still in residence on MTJ, which suggests to me lonely or bored people, I find our conversations interesting, because they have variety, are something to do beyond the borders of my community, and I get amazed at the knowledge and experiences of the other voices who come here to share their thoughts.

Lastly, I regret the several voices who no longer speak here, due to self-exile, banishment, or death. Maybe some guys just got bored or offended too much and left. I was sorry to see every one of them go. Yet, in a way, that all mirrors life. People come and go in our lives. Some we like, and some we would not reach out to again. Leaving, for a variety of reasons, is a part of the road of life, isn't it.

I hope you do not become one of the voices who leaves. To me, that would be a personal loss here. I always look for your contributions to replies on the various threads and enjoy your company.
Murph

[Roy]

My grandfather told me @65 years ago, and I know this is nothing new to the users of this forum, that there were three things that should not be discussed publicly by friends, politics, religion and sex if they want to remain friends. It seems to me that we have been pushing the bounds.

Good to see you, Roger.

We've all gotten one form or another of the same warning. If you think about it, this only serves the Establishment. This is a democracy, therefore, we need to talk about what we want, and don't want, from our government. The founding fathers understood this, and that's why they encouraged discussion of these things, by way of the First Amendment.

I miss the train talk, too. I'm party to that, since my depression is worse than it was a few years ago. When I start feeling better, the first thing I do is pick up one of my train projects, and start working on it.

[E7]

My thought on the LACK of train talk is: If you don't see any, start a topic yourself. If everyone waited for other people to start something, there would never be any topics!

Rich

[rogruth]

A few quick, I hope, answers.
I'm still all for thread drift.
IMHO the discussion of the three topics is that we don't know when to stop. We are not going to influence democracy here.
It is hard to start a train topic when there has been so little recently. I think some are started but die rather quickly from
lack of interest. We have all seen this happen. It is possible to go to a different forum and find the same topic going on.
There has been some thoughts in the past about the size of MTJ, fairly small. IMO most of the members want to keep it small.
I still prefer MTJ.

[Tom Dempsey]

Roger, a few months ago, I had some questions about three rail locomotives that were very well answered, on the three rail forum, by the group. I really appreciated it and the advice was very helpful. I suspect the reason that the three rail forum is somewhat dead is that three rail in general has become a "collector" scale for many and I don't know of anyone building three rail anymore. If they are, they're pretty quiet about it. When you mentioned this, I threw out two three rail subjects and was quickly admonished for it. They were, at least to me, serious questions about the three rail community which continue to baffle me. Perhaps, at times, some of us on this forum are reading our own agendas into other folks responses. I do hope you will stay with the group as I feel you tend to leaven the bread in a very needed (no pun intended) fashion.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Tom, May we hear those subjects/questions here (if the OP doesn't mind, of course) ?

[Tom Dempsey]

I rarely put my face in a fan twice Murph.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

I rarely put my face in a fan twice Murph.

OK, sir, I just wanted to show you my interest in what you had to say or had observed. I like when you talk.