Welcome to route56.com
Welcome to my anchor point on the web. For over 20 years, I have shared various subjects regarding highway, railways, local radio, and more.
I chose the name “route56” in honor of the green and white variant of the US Highway shield that the Kansas Department of Transportation and its predecessor agency used specifically to mark US 56 from its creation until the mid 1980s.
Click on the links above to access the pages devoted to the history of local radio and Kansas Highways, along with other creative outlets.
You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Flickr.
Latest Blog Posts
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Sunday Night Weather
First, a nasty thunderstorm cell tore a path through North Lawrence, delivering Hail up to the size of baseballs. Next thing you know, hours after the storm, the power for most of west Lawrence goes out, and you get left in the dark for some time. The rain gauge is still busted, so I don’t…
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More Felps Fotoshops
At the suggestion of the newest NFL cheerleader on the road crew: Alicia. Great Song by Clay Walker Self-explanatory
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Fotoshop: Starring Phred Felps
Another Blogger had an idea about doing a Photoshop contest featuring a picture of Topeka’s favorite anti-gay, anti-everything protestor, Fred Phelps. I decided to join the fun. Appologies in advance to Aimee, Ashley, Deena, Heidi, Cori, Sara, and Rod.
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They really mean it
The following is the Hazardous Weather Outlook for this afternoon. I personally have not seen an outlook so strongly worded. The Storm Prediction Center had put Northeast Kansas under “High” risk for Severe Weather… which means that they expect a major outbreak of severe thunderstorms. HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TOPEKA KS 1228 PM…
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…and I’m not talking about the big brown truck
As an lowest person on the IT totem poll, I usually don’t get called out to the workplace late at night. However, since my supervisor lives an hour and a half away, and the phone system is my specialty, tonight I got called because the PBX had apparantly gone down. When I got in, the…
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Poor Little Allison
Yesterday was a bit of a scare for me, and for my cat, Allison (I named her after a Friend of Mine) She lost weight (a week ago, she looked fine, by yesterday, I could feel her bones). I took her to the vet, who noticed that her skin was a tinge of yellow. He…
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What a way to start the morning.
I got out of bed this morning to the sound of the weather radio…. a signs of things to come. At about 8:00 this morning, a rather nasty storm cell passed this morning with a major wind gust. The wind knocked down part of our fence… I called the wind damage in to the Weather…
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Drawing attention from the law
Especailly since 9/11, railfanning has ocassionally come under scrutiny from the police. There have been stories of Police bring the FBI in on railfans, confiscating film, cards and camera. For me, it wasn’t that much; however, today as I was railfanning the BNSF Emporia Sub near Ottawa, I did draw attention from a Franklin County…
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DCC, Part 2
I blogged a couple weeks ago about my new Digital Command Control system for my model railroad. I now have 3 more units wired up for DCC. The first unit is a Norfolk Southern C44-9W. I had tinkered with it for some time to get it running for DCC, but the first decoder got messed…
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I-70 mess
Earlier this month, part of I-70 in Elllis county was closed after a truck load sliced through part of the deck. Ryan in Colorado has pictures at his site