There are few personal confessions more likely to alienate many Americans than to admit to smoking. Singles ads are filled with people who will never even go on a first date with someone who smokes. I strongly suspect that more women would date a millionaire who earned his money disreputably than a millionaire who smoked.

Drinkers are far more highly regarded than smokers, as are playboys, gamblers, lawyers, politicians and almost anyone else except child molesters.

So I have no doubt that some readers who until now have held me in esteem will lose respect for me when they learn that not only do I smoke cigars and a pipe, but I love doing so, have no interest in stopping and have been happy to pass this pleasure on to my older son. In fact, we regularly have some of our best talks while we enjoy our cigars.

For the record, I never smoke cigarettes, which I happen to dislike the smell of, and which I acknowledge to be dangerous. But what I write here largely applies to cigarette smokers as well. In fact, I find anti-smoking zealots far more dangerous to society than cigarette smokers, and would much sooner date a cigarette smoker than one of the zealots.

[…]

Yes, I am warned by doctors that I am more liable to contract mouth or lip cancer, but while physicians may see such diseases, in 40 years of smoking I have never met or heard of one person with either cancer.

Indeed, I am quite convinced that my one-a-day cigar or pipe may well have had a positive impact on my health given how much relaxation it induces. Stress kills far more people than cigars or pipes do.

It is a sign of the times that the latest James Bond film has prohibited 007 from smoking a cigar. One of the most benign practices a person can engage in was banned, but our macho hero can be shown drinking alcohol and bedding women (and without any mention of condoms!), not to mention killing people and engaging in behaviors infinitely more dangerous than cigar smoking.

We live in the Age of Stupidity. This new age has been induced by widespread college education and widespread secularism—Psalms is entirely accurate: “Wisdom begins with fear of the Lord”—which explains, for example, why only well-educated secularists came to believe that there were no innate nonphysical differences between men and women.

Nearly 100 years ago, before widespread college education and before widespread secularism, when America tried to prohibit a vice, it chose alcohol, not tobacco. It knew that there were immoral consequences to alcohol consumption—most child abuse, most spousal abuse, about half of violent crimes and most rapes are accompanied by alcohol. Nobody has ever raped because smoking a cigarette or a cigar numbed his conscience. And no one fears smoking drivers; we rightly fear drinking drivers.

Both in my hometown and on the road, I find great joy in visiting cigar stores and schmoozing with the owners and with the guys smoking there. In fact, cigar stores may be the last place men can get together without women. 

[…]

You might enjoy the whole article. 

~Jason

My grandfather, Earl Abrams, introduced me to locomotives, to working steam engines, and to Lionel train sets at a young age. That likely had a big part in my interest. Plus, I like the notion of playing God to a whole world: designing mountains and streams for tiny, adoring, plastic people. Twisted.

But real model railroading is time consuming. And real model railroading is expensive! And all the gear takes up so much room! Joanne complains every time we pull up house and move: “Tell me again why we lug these boxes of track, trains, and trestles from house to house, city to city, and country to country?”

I smile and mention how the kids will love it someday. Someday is taking too long to get to station.

So I can be spotted at times, trolleying the Internet in search of an alternate option to the basement empire; an option in the form of software. I haven’t had a lot of luck, because there are a lot of variables at play in creating a viable alternative.

• The program has to be cheap.
• It has to allow customization and creativity - I want to model my own world.
• It shouldn’t be too time consuming to get a train running around the virtual track
• Kids should be able to enjoy it with me
• It should allow multiplayer interaction

That last point is the real zinger. There are lots of programs out there that let you run trains on a track. Many are overly customizable. I’ve got a couple of versions of Railroad Tycoon, and it’s great for simulated train economics. Microsoft has an expensive program called “Train Simulator” (creative title, eh?) There’s another cool game called Trainz. These cost money. I found a free one today called BVE. It’s very cool with amazing graphics. There’s another program called TrainPlayer which lets you run toy trains around on your own track plans, or the track plans made famous by model railroader gurus. Fun for a while. Again, way too expensive.

Bewilderingly, none of these make use of a multiplayer environment. Why would anyone even want multiplayer? Lots of reasons.

Model train layouts are way more compelling when there are people doing it together. Every person comes with a different skill: wiring, modelling, painting, kit-bashing, computer programming, painting or air-brushing; decals, historical accuracy, mechanics, design, sculpting, making tiny trees, tiny rocks, or tiny people. Painting backdrops. You name it, whatever your skill, there’s likely a place for it in model railroading.

And running the trains around the layout can take more than one person to keep them from colliding. You’ve got the dispatcher, the engineers, the guy working the yard, the gal reading the schedule, the guy bringing the cookies and coffee. It’s a team sport.

And some people are into modules. With modules, each person designs their own little diorama, then brings it to the clubhouse. Each module connects to the one next to it. You can bring as many modules as you want, making a huge empire for which each person is king of a four foot long section. Everyone runs their favourite locomotive and train through the whole thing… across the prairie diorama, under the mountains diorama, right out to the coastal diorama. It’s kind of like sharing!

Wouldn’t that be a great concept for a virtual train program? What if I could design my own module; say a city set in 1950’s East Hamilton, and connect it over the Internet to my friends module set in 1950’s Rochester or another friend in 1950’s Toronto? We could send traffic back and forth between our modules, and the modules of others in our ‘virtual club.’ Picking up passengers, grabbing mail, delivering grain, whatever.

I did finally find a program that flirts with this idea. It’s called Freight Yard Manager, and it allows you to take a satelite photograph of a freight yard, run trains on it, and send them off with loads for adjacent cities. I haven’t downloaded it yet, but it sounds like it has potential. It also sounds complicated.

I hope some game developer out there will catch the vision for multiplayer train simulators. Until then, I’ll keep dreaming of a model layout in the basement.

~Jason

But now the subject has become a little more urgent because our plans this summer are to travel to Saskatchewan to visit Joanne’s mom and dad, camping with the family along the way.

So we found a couple of inexpensive trailers online— they were in Toronto, so the other evening we drove in to take a look. The one we’re getting is $700— a hard top with a stove, sink, built in ice-box/cooler, table, sleeps six, and is in terrific shape. It’s a little old, from the early 80’s, but we don’t care. It has new tires, and the man who owned it previously took great care of it.

So Saturday morning we’ve decided to drive back to Toronto in the morning to pick it up. I’m so excited!! I’ve always thought it would be neat to have my own camper trailer.

We’ve talked about taking the piano and doing concerts along the way… so if you live between Hamilton, Ontario and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and you want me to come play at your venue, then let’s set it up!

~Jason

Anyway, this new feature displays all the surnames in the tree. Here’s a copy and paste from it below. You’ll need to email me for a password to get more information on these individuals.

Select a surname from the list below:

“Unknown” | Abrams | Agnew | Aiken | Albertson | Allen | Allport | Alton | Anderson | Ann | Ansley | Arnold | Asselstine | Avehousen | Ayling | Babbit | Babcock | Babcook | Badour | Baker | Barringer | Bartram | Bauder | Beate | Beckwith | Beebe | Begley | Bell | Bennett | Benson | Benstead | Bentley | Bicknell | Bilodeau | Birney | Bishop | Bishop-Abrams | Black | Blanchard | Bodway | Bolger | Bond | Booth | Boutillier | Bovey | Bowes | Breckenbridge | Bredberg | Brewer | Bridgen | Brooks | Brown | Bruce | Buck | Burdick | Burley | Burnett | Burton | Butler | Campbell | Carlson | Carr | Carter | Casselman | Chaplan | Christie | Chrysler | Cifala | Clark | Clow | Colburn | Condie | Conlin | Corneil | Cornwall | Coulter | Cox | Craig | Crapo | Crawford | Cronk | DaSilva | Dafoe | Darking | Darling | Davis | Daw | Day | Del-Mei | Demerchant | Desrochers | Devana | Diamond | Dowdall | Duffy | Duffy Smith | Dunn | Dunton | Dwyer | Easter | Ellerbeck | Elliott | Elvidge | Emmon | Evans | Ferguson | Ferris | Fleming | Ford | Forrest | Forsyth | Foster | Freeman | Friel | Funk | Gallagher | Gard | Garret | Garrett | Gazzel | Gemill | Goodfriend | Gordanier | Gordon | Gordonier | Graham | Gratto | Graves | Green | Greenstreet | Gregg | Grems | Grice | Griffin | Guittard | Guthrie | Hagerman | Halliday | Hamilton | Hanley | Harkness | Harpell | Harris | Hart | Hatt | Hawkins | Hayes | Heinricks | Helms | Henry | Highland | Highland / Hyland | Himple | Holmes | Holtz | Hoppins | Howey | Hunter | Hyland | Ilan | Jackson | Jeffrey | Jenkins | Johnson | Jones | Joyce | Joynt | Karn | Keeley | Keller | Kemp | Kenahan | Kiesel | Kilpatrick | King | Knapp | Krahermharn | Kyle | LaPlante | Lake | Lamour | Lanuza | Latimer | Lattimore | Lawson | LeBlanc | LeHeup | Leavens | Lech | Lee | Leeman | Lees | Lewis | Linau | Lindsay | Locey | Loewen | Lord | Loucks / Sedore | Lovelace | Loveless | Lowe | Lubiniv | Lyon | MacLeod | MacPhail | Major | Makem | Mandoles | Mann | Marie | Marriott | Martin | Massa | Matthew | May | McClenaghan | McCollough | McCullan | McGuire | McKeigan | McKinley | McKinnley | McNaughton | McPhail | McQuarrie/McImrie | Mcleods | Melo | Merry | Millar | Miller | Milsap | Morrow | Morton | Mulholland | Mullin | Mullins | Murray | Mutton | Nadeau | Nesbitt | Neudorf | Neufeld | Niblock | Northmore | O’Flaherty | O’neil | O’neill | Orr | Orser | Page | Passenessi | Peer | Pero | Perry | Peters | Phillips | Pocock | Poudrier | Powley | Pratt | Prosser | Pullen | Purdy | Raymond | Regan | Reid | Revell | Richardson | Ridge | Riley | Rindone | Rixten | Robidoux | Robinson | Rodeghiero | Rogers | Rollar | Ross | Ruttan | Rutter | Sands | Savage | Sawatzky | Schneider | Scott | Shales | Shannon | Sheen | Shepherd | Shier | Shirrock | Silver | Simpson | Sinclair | Sith | Sloot | Smith | Snider | Snook | Spafford | Spooner | Stantliff | Steel | Stephenson | Stitt | Stubbs | Sturdevant | Sutherland | Switzer | Teal | Teichroeb | Thompson | Thorp | Timmerman | Townsend | Tuepah | Van Camp | Van Hoek | Van Leuvan | Van Voorst | VanOrden | Vancoughnut | Vanluven | Vassal | Veley | Votery | Wagner | Wakely | Walker | Walls | Walters | Wartman | Watkins | Watts | Webster | Welch | Welsh | Whan | White | Wilson | Winslow | Winters | Wiseman | Woodcock | Woodward | Wowk | Wright | Wylie | Yeomans | Yeomans Arnold | Young | Zacharias | campbell | hutchinson | jones | macDonnell | Van der Kraats |

~Jason