Since I have now retired from paid work, I keep myself busy with two voluntary activities:
On Mondays, I spend four hours running the office for a support group, assisting those of us who have passed the age of 50. Here, the organization is called Grey Power. I know I could take my car to the office but, there is a bus every 40 minutes from the foot of our street. The bus goes right past the office. Here, holders of the so - called "Super Gold Card" (age over 65), are entitled to free bus or train urban transport between 9 am and 3 pm during the week, and anytime at the weekend. Therefore, I catch the 9.15 am bus to the office and the 2.20 pm bus back. If things at the office are quiet, I take along my laptop, with PCLinuxOS LXDE, and surf the net. The data cap is high enough that Grey Power doesn't mind my using some of it at all.
In the city of Palmerston North where I live, there is a neat little miniature Scenic railway (gauge 10.25 inches). Recently, I was trained to work as a voluntary Guard (Conductor) and I travel on the back, assisting young - and not so young - passengers on and off the train. The full circuit is just a bit over 2 km in length, with three stations.
This afternoon, I commenced training to work as a driver on the train. In the video that follows, the locomotive shown is the one that I did my training on. It is a quarter scale of the DX class locomotive made by General Electric in Erie, Pennsylvania.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOGNKW4nYXsLots of fun
Jim
