a wee castle anyone?

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pilvikki
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a wee castle anyone?

Post by pilvikki »

guy was looking for a gardener for free rent... so the kids volunteered me. :think:

well, what he really wanted was a landscaper/gardener/pet sitter/dusting major. it was the felling trees part that got me, so no. but the place was wicked cool! it's from the 1600's and set along a looong driveway. we didn't know where we were going, so we parked at the bottom and walked and walked before getting to the main building. it's owned by an old englishman and he's got it for sale, in case anyone's interested. :lol:

the dining room, the really bright sunlight kinda ruins the shot, but you can still see what's there:

Image

a bit of hardware

Image

nice suit:

Image

the lounge, with a human skull on top of the bookcase:

Image
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yogi
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

Post by yogi »

Does it come furnished? I like that armored dude with the dark eyes
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pilvikki
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

Post by pilvikki »

you know, it's funny you should ask; he says he collects this stuff, but when i asked where they were collected from, he said mostly england... really?

he also said he has several castles (mansions, whatever) on the go for restoration, yet this one, after 10 years, needs paint in the worst way....
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yogi
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

Post by yogi »

That's an amazing, if not expensive, hobby. I would have no idea how to even start collecting such things, if I wanted to.
So, what's an Englishman doing living in France? I thought there were laws against such things.
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Kellemora
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

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You'll find this hard to believe, but my wife just left today in a one way rental car to go to Nashville, TN to catch a plane tomorrow afternoon for Atlanta, GA
From Atlanta, GA, she will board a plane about 8pm and fly to Dublin, Ireland for a week.

She will be touring a few castles while there, plus a lot of other things too.

In order to get back home, she has to fly from Dublin to Paris, and wait around for 3 hours for her Air France flight back to JFK in New York. After a couple of hour wait there, she will fly back to Nashville. She's taking a bus home from Nashville.

She's only been on a plane once, for only two hours, and that was when we went to visit my son while he was living in Florida.
I hope she fairs well on a nine hour flight over the ocean, hi hi...
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yogi
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

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I passed through both Nashville and Atlanta on our anniversary adventure a couple weeks ago. Fortunately we drove through Atlanta on Sunday when the traffic was light. I've not been on an 8 lane highway for a few decades. It was an amazing feat of navigation. LOL
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Kellemora
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

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It does get crazy out there on the asphalt jungle!

I know back in St. Loo we had some crazy intersections, but for the most part, the driving lanes followed the normal driving laws, except in some rare cases where they couldn't.

But down here, it's like they throw the driving laws out the window when it comes to the roadways, and the signs they put up.

A simple example:
You are on a four-lane road (two lanes going your direction), you pass a sign "Keep Right Except to Pass" then a half a block later, the right lane suddenly turns into a right turn only lane.
My other beef has to do with the two driving lanes turning into one driving lane. They put up a sign that says "Merge Left"
Shouldn't the sign say "Merge Right" ? Or passing lane ends merge right.

There are a LOT of crazy things down here I've never seen elsewhere in all my years of driving OTR.
You get off a 70 mph highway via the exit ramp. The state puts up a sign showing the safe speed for the exit ramp as you near the turn, so you have time to slow down. However the city puts up a sign, about 2/3 the way up the exit ramp that says 20 mph.
But wait, you'll see why this is so ridiculous.
The exit ramp has no other roads connecting to to it, and is about 3/4 of a mile long, all at 20 mph.
At the end of the exit ramp, there is a Y-intersection. The left side goes into the hospital parking lot, the right side goes along the right side of the hospital, past numerous parking lot entrances, and several side roads and driveways on the right.
But dig this, in the most congested area, they up the speed limit to 40 mph.
Then when you get past all the congestion and people turning, to an area where their are no more driveways, and only one more street, a dead end on top of it, they cut the speed limit back to 30 mph.
They should have the exit ramp at 40 mph and the congested area 30 to 35 mph.
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Kellemora
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

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The frau just called, they boarded Delta flight 2599 in Nashville, should be in Atlanta a little after 6pm.
Then they change planes and head off to Dublin around 8pm.
And she thinks SHE is the one on Vacation, hi hi...
While the cats away as they say!
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yogi
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

Post by yogi »

I used to do all the big house projects when the wife took off to Florida for a few weeks in February. It kept me busy and helped the time pass quicker, not to mention how hard it is to do anything significant with a wife overseeing things. :mrgreen:

Missouri has some craziness with their ideas of traffic flow as well. Up north I could get in one lane of the expressway and stay in it to my destination. Anyone who didn't like my driving could simply go around me. When I tried that here in Missouri, I invariably end up in the right lane which is an exit lane in the middle of an otherwise normal expressway. I've been force off the road more than once because of some damned traffic engineer's idea of an efficient highway. The other thing about O'Fallon streets is that quite a few of them have more than one name. I'll be going down Fiese Road and suddenly find myself on Laura Hill Road which turns into Knaust Road that finally terminates as Belleau Creek Road all without traveling more than three miles. I can say, however, that the speed limit signs make sense. :mrgreen:
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

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People find a route they like to take, often with several turns, and after it becomes popular and more heavily traveled, they change the road marking to facilitate the traffic flow. It's like that here too! Going over to my wife's sisters home, although it is a straight shot as far as the roadway itself is concerned. At one time it was several turns onto different streets. It still is actually, however, their are no more turns, per se. The road you are on by a certain name used to go right, and you had to make a left on another road. Now the main road goes to the left, and the original road is now a turn.

But yes, a lot of streets that did not get a new route, still had different names as they passed through certain areas. Like Lindbergh Blvd. become Kirkwood Road while going through Kirkwood.
Some of the time, this is because two roads were joined later on. Like our Henley Street and Chapman Highway. On the north side of the Tennessee River it was named Henley Street, and on the south side of the River it was Chapman Highway. Then they built a bridge across the river joining the two streets.

I worked in Highways and Planning when the secondary Interstate Highways were built. Namely the 100 and 200 series Interstates. Both the 100 and 200 series Interstates were designed as CIRCLES, although not all of the circles would be built as circles. They came up with the most logical numbering system anyone could imagine, but for many who didn't understand it, it was too complicated for them. The government failed to provide instructions for the numbering system.
As an example, I'll use the 200 Interstate System. The number TWO was most significant, and could be replaced with the word TWO... If you were ON Interstate 244, it meant you were going TOWARD Interstate 44. If you were ON Interstate 270 in meant you were going TOWARD Interstate 70. This of course caused either side of the 200 Interstates to have different names.
So somewhere along the line, after the Interstates were built, they gave both sides the same name. Then later on they changed again to give each full arc the same name, regardless of how many different Interstates they crossed.

Because cities are comprised of some very odd shapes, and the 100 series was supposed to be as close to a circle as possible, they had to average the suburban fringe around the city and then install the 100 series Interstate. Technically, if you were on a 100 series interstate, you knew the city was inside the circle and the county outside the circle.
The 200 series was also arcs of a circle, and centered in the counties around a city.
The 300 series was also supposed to be small arcs of a circle, and on the edge of two different counties where possible, and only constructed where traffic congestion dictated such an Interstate was necessary.
However, the original plans for the 300 series fell by the wayside, and many 300 series Interstates became more like spokes of wheel leading from city to city, which was never the intent of the 300 series numbering at all.
Interstate 370 is a good example of a great plan gone wrong.
Links between Interstate highways, that were not a 100, 200, or 300 series circles, were not supposed to be Interstates at all, but simply State Roads with a Federal Route number, and were never supposed to get a name.

However, we all know, some existing roads with names became Interstates, and some Federal Routes also became Interstates. Route 66 for example, covered many different routes over the years, but is now replaced by Interstate 44 and Interstate 66 I think. Been a long time since I've lived in the area, so who knows what they call them now, hi hi...

I lived on Manchester Road, back when it was Route 66, before they moved Route 66 further south to go through Crestwood.
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Kellemora
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

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Oh, forgot to mention.
The frau and her son landed in Dublin, Ireland an hour later than expected. Don't know why the delay as they took off on time.
Either that or the time conversions were not correct.
They left Atlanta, GA at 8pm GA time, also my time, and was supposed to land in Dublin at 9am Dublin Time, 2am my time.
They didn't land until 3:15am my time. Maybe the paper forgot about the DST time change?
Her son sent me a text at 3:20am after they landed, and before getting off the plane. It didn't reach my phone until 6:10am, so I was up all night waiting to learn they made it safe and sound. No emergency landing places in the Ocean...
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yogi
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

Post by yogi »

My pet peeve here isn't with the numbering system, of which I didn't realize there was a method to it. Up in Illinois when driving on an expressway or on an interstate highway I could drive in the far right land and stay there until I reached my destination. When exiting I would have too veer right into the exit lane or off ramp. I had to make a deliberate move in order to exit the highway. I can't tell you how many times I've been forced to exit when I don't want to here in Missouri. If I drive in that right lane there is a high probability that it turns into an exit lane/off ramp without me doing anything but driving straight ahead. If I do not want to exit, I must change lanes to the left, if possible. Why is that good traffic engineering?

The good news is that Missouri drivers seem a lot more forgiving than those in Illinois. The posted speed limits in Illinois are taken to be suggested minimum speeds. Hardly anyone goes at the highway speed limit or less. Plus, should I choose to obey the law, that guy in back of me gets very aggressive. He will pass on the right and cut me off getting back into the fast lane. Here in Missouri most drivers go at the posted speed limit or 5 mph over. Should I be going too slow for them the cars in back of me will typically wait until I get out of their way. That's typical, but not a rule. But, I can say the drivers here are much less aggressive than those in Illinois. Then there are those damned flashing amber arrows. WTF are they supposed to mean? Nothing like that exists in Illinois because the drivers up north have no idea what the word "yield" means. :mrgreen:

I've been driving around MO for more than a year now and am finally beginning to catch on. But it was quite a learning experience.
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

Post by Kellemora »

None of the Interstates were like that when they were built. But many changes have been made to them over the years, and a lot of those changes are in violation of the driving laws. The Thru Lane should never suddenly shoot up an exit.
However, that being said, take I-244 or I-270 whatever they call it now. The exit and entrance lanes continued from the on ramp to the next off ramp, due to the fairly short distance between exits, so these were exit lanes not thru lanes.

Down here, we have a few exit ramps taking off from the inside or passing lane. I've never hit that before, other than at Ys where the highways split back apart again.

Speed limits are pretty much ignored down here, like they are in Illinois.
But one thing you should have noticed about Missouri is our speed limits are usually higher than most other places.
Back in the late 1960s we got a law passed that did not allow a speed limit to be set below 25mph, not even in a school zone.
I think they finally rescinded that law in the mid to late 80s though. The reason for us getting that law passed was due to several streets having 10 and 15 mph speed limits, mainly for use as speed traps.

Oh, one other thing you might be interested in. When I lived in Missouri, we had the 85% rule, which could quite often get you out of a speeding ticket. If 85% of the traffic flows over the posted speed limit, the posted speed limit was no longer valid. This too has probably been changed, but it still works in many cases, especially down here where one of our roads is used like a racetrack all day every day, hi hi...

The drivers down here drive across medians, use medians as exit ramps or for lane changes. This used to be a big problem back home if you got off Ballas Road onto Hwy 40 heading into the city. The guy behind you would invariably cut across the median to take the spot you were planning on merging into.

My cousin comes to visit me from Florida every once in a while. If a light is green and he wants to make a left, instead of waiting at the white line, he will pull out into the middle of the intersection and wait for the light to turn red so he can make his turn. The stop light cameras got his picture more than once, but they couldn't do anything about it because he was already in the intersection when the light did turn red, hi hi...
Not too many people do that down here, because of the way our lights are adjusted. You could end up getting stuck in the intersection through an entire cycle and have rows of cars mad at you, hi hi... Then you can get a ticket for obstructing the normal flow of traffic.

I wonder what is going to happen if more of these self-driving cars get on the road? Especially when they hit these illegally marked intersections and turn lanes. Which law does it go by? Keep right except to pass, or merge left into the passing lane and drive there?
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pilvikki
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Re: a wee castle anyone?

Post by pilvikki »

just got back from carcassonne.
not amused.
not in the least.
a british car with headlights not dimmed for L hand traffic, blinded me completely.
a wee shitbox following me so closely that when i hit the breaks, the breaklights reflected back from his car. (i think i scared him, for he backed right off)
people charging into the 1456209 roundabouts i had to cross. you get 2 morons side by side cutting you off; where did they think one is to go?
3+ point u-turn on the highway??? why didn't you just drive up to next inconveniently located roundabout, maybe 500 yards ahead?
now, let me s l o w l y wiggle my teeny car out of this parking space... out, hang on, try again. and again. ah, finally, out, so now i can meander down the parking lot at slower than a drunk's walking speed, while the line up gets longer and longer...
i hate driving here, while used to enjoy it in canada. every place had it's odd ducks and weird rules, but this is bizarre...
:sad:

and the flippin' hospital! if you look at the map, you'll think it's pretty straight forward, 3 roundabouts and straight road to the hospital. um... not so fast, if you take the scenic route via street view, you'll see the road is very bendy and has a lot of lovely plants all over the place. in 2014 they were just little, but now a lot bigger and bushier. i personally would prefer less foliage and better visibility but that's just me...

then, the road into the hospital... it's from that strange loop in front of it. if you need the emergency, well, you drive up towards the hospital, then hang a right, then a left and and another left and WHAT were they thinking! someone in a life or death situation has to get shaken about and driven around the damned hospital to boot!

it floors me!

https://www.google.fr/maps/search/hospi ... ,16z?hl=en
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