The OCHS has published Vol 4 in their Journal series, filled with well-researched, entertaining stories about life in Ouray County back in the "good old days." Click on the image to order.

To learn more about OCHS, click here, where you’ll find directions to the museum in Ouray. The site has many more details about the museum.

The AmericanFlyingBroomstick.com Web Pages Consolidated into MSP

As part of an ongoing “look and feel” consolidation, the web pages for www.americanflyingbroomstick.com have been placed onto the Mt. Sneffels Press server. All the information is intact, including the videos. You can go to the AFB pages directly or you can navigate by using the menu bar at the top of the page. Hover the mouse over “Projects” and you can click on “Flying Broomstick,” which has all the links. As usual, you can order any of the three books in the series via our catalog page.

The “Technology” page has been bumped up a notch to be its own “Project” page. I get questions all the time about doing this and that. You’ll find the answers on the Technology page.

And the “Weather Station” is also its own project. It took several hours of work to get the weather station info to upload properly, but I finally persuaded WordPress to do an “include,” which means the page always contains the latest data. That meant a plug-in to permit “including” some php code. If that sounds technical, it is!

In the past I had a couple earlier pre-broomstick books online and took them down to reduce expenses. Now that I’m consolidating on this site, I will re-post them. The two books are in the “About” series: About Dan and About Phillip. Watch for them!

If you find any problems (stray links or other disconnects), please alert me via a comment to this post. Thanks!

Both our Catalog and our Extended Catalog now feature a shopping cart. That means weight is used to compute postage, saving you money!

No more! I thrust my way through the tangled thicket on PayPal’s website and figured out how to use the shopping cart feature. So, you can add an item to the cart, continue to peruse the site and add more items, and when you’re done you just click on any “View Cart” button and you’re whisked to your shopping cart, where you can finalize your order. Of course, you can remove items or change quantities at any time, simply via the “View Cart” button. All “View Cart” buttons take you to the same place: your shopping cart.

The cool thing is that the shipping is calculated on the weight of the total order. That can represent significant savings. The starting point for shipping is $2.75, but if you order, say, the Railroad book plus Mary Ann Dismant’s memoirs, the total shipping is just $3.00. What a cool way to save money!

I’ve got the cart up for the Mt. Sneffels Press catalog and will update the extended catalog soon so that it has this feature also.

UPDATE Jan 22, 2010: The Extended Catalog has been upgraded to add the shopping cart feature.

But I never thought I could become a member.

I told those who urged me to take the test that I didn’t see any point in paying $40 to take an exam I knew I’d fail.

Well, good friend Randy Cassingham mentioned in his This is True weekly newsletter that even old SAT scores can be used to qualify. Hmph…I took the SAT in high school back in 1969. I couldn’t find a copy of my score. But I did run across my Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores from 1978 when I was in the Air Force and wanted to start a Masters program in Electrical Engineering.

And my scores qualified. So…my application for Mensa went off today.

Something I thought would never happen!

The Ridgway Railroad Museum's book is earning plaudits from the narrow gauge railroading press. Click on image to go to order from our catalog.

From the NG&SL Gazette Review, Sept/Oct 2009:

This book describes three of the 3-foot gauge railroads that once ran in the Silverton, Ouray, and Ridgway areas of Colorado. There are stories, short histories of the area described, maps and black and white photos. These include “Ridgway Street Names,” “The Legacy of Robert M. Ridgway,” “The RGS Through Telegrams,” “Unusual Spikes on the RGS,” and an item about a runaway RGS flatcar. The book also describes the Ridgway Railroad Museum, and the narrow gauge equipment located there. Included are D&RGW Boxcar #3130, Stock Car #5574, and Drop Bottom Gondola #702. Articles also describe the restoration of Caboose #0575, Goose #4 and the re-creation of Motor #1. All great reading!

From the Colorado Railroad Journal, Sept 2009:

The 110-page volume contains 40 carefully researched short articles by seven museum members, along with 60 photographs, maps and drawings. The articles contain information available nowhere else. Some of the topics covered include history of each of the museum’s railcars, snow fighting on the narrow gauge, life working for the railroad, locations along the featured routes, the Corkscrew Gulch turntable, Ouray depot, water tanks on the narrow gauge, Ouray to Ironton by rail, the Ramona townsite affair, dispatcher’s train sheets, and many more.

Check out the book in our catalog.

The third book in the American Flying Broomstick Series, FOG at the Crossroads, will be available within days.

Here’s the blurb for the new book:

Book 3 in the American Flying Broomstick series starts with a bombshell. The tiny Fraternal Order of the Grail (FOG), the group that has safeguarded the Holy Grail for two millennia, has misplaced it. The Keeper, Reggie Baker, moved the Grail to its new secret repository and then died while walking his dog—before he could tell the other brethren where he’d put it! The loss causes a rift between powerful American brother Hal Bender and the English branch centered in London, and Dave is caught in the middle. Dave makes haste to London to organize FOG’s new young novices to find the Holy Grail—by using flying broomsticks, of course. But the media is full of rumors that FOG will take back the Power that enables broomsticks to fly. And the sinister Plasma Vortex organization is after Dave’s wand so they can use its power for extortion and general mayhem. FOG at the Crossroads records Dave’s high adventure in the American West and in Southern England. Come along for the wild ride!

So watch this space for availability!

The official launch will be at the Regional Mensa Convention in Reno, NV, in early October, but unofficial availability starts as soon as I receive the print run.