Vitamins, and other things I don’t think about very hard

Yesterday, I went to open up the next jar of vitamin gummies for the kids, and I realized that before it ever got to us, it had been exposed to enough heat to melt the gummmies, because they were all on one vertical half of the jar. Obviously, that didn’t happen in the closet, lol, unless there was also a highly localized gravity anomaly at the same time.

Anyway. We pitched the vitamins, because even if they were fine (unclear, given that we don’t know how hot they got), they’d be hard to safely re-portion.

I went to go buy more on Amazon, but they aren’t currently available, and I mostly want a multi-that-includes-vitamin-k, and the others tend not to have vitamin k. I can supplement vitamin k for the kids by itself if that becomes necessary again, but that was the original motivation.

So I decided to re-analyze A.’s diet to see how much vitamin K she is getting these days, because while her diet is very, very much the same every day, it does have some variety, more than when the kids would sometimes have nosebleeds. I started with raisins, because I thought, I bet there’s some in there. Yes, yes there is. Then I thought, celery is green, I bet there’s some in there. Indeed! And in carrots and cashews as well. So, she’s fine for vitamin K. For giggles, I went down the obvious list (A and D in milk, C in juice and fruit, E in meat, B vitamines, folate etc. in peanuts and cashews, lots of potassium between potato product and banana etc.). She’s got magnesium gummies and has those occasionally.

I have already ordered more vitamin gummies of a different sort (some of the ones that purport to have real fruit and veg in them, which I’ve always wondered about whether that’s actually worthwhile or totally disgusting) and we’ll see how that goes, but I’m thinking I may phase them out of vitamin supplementation entirely.

Belatedly Learning about Dreamstar Lines

Today, R. sent me a link to the Dreamstar Lines page:

https://dreamstarlines.com/

It’s a stub with pictures.

Last April, there was a flurry of news coverage of Dreamstar Lines and the big dreams of Vollebregt and company:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-04-18/night-train-san-francisco-los-angeles-dreamstar-lines

Other coverage mentioned the Union Pacific lines, and this one also mentions Metrolink and Caltrain. The LA Times reached out to UP and Metrolink who confirmed discussions were happening (so this isn’t completely fakey fakey), but here is a quote:

“Scott Johnson, a spokesperson for Metrolink, said Dreamstar representatives had recently “presented very high-level plans for the proposed service.””

I know what “very high-level plans” for “proposed” something means. It means, come back when you’ve got something to back that up, where the something to back it up is more than rates for rooms, number of cars and schedules. As near as I can tell, someone took seriously that “write the press release first” and then just started having meetings with people, which, honestly, it’s a couple of lawyers. Having meetings and signing contracts seems like the right place to start, and they are always mad when a bunch of nerds and engineers get together and build a thing and when you ask them about contracts and insurance they go, what? Meetings, contracts, nerds and engineers and lawyers are all important. And insurance, probably. You can’t get away with only part of that package.

Once I saw that coverage, I kind of quit trying to find details on a hypothetical contract between Dreamstar Lines and Union Pacific to use their line. The only way UP is going to agree to a contract is with dates, dollars and functioning consists, and while Dreamstar can imagine dates and they might even have dollars, nothing is happening without actual, inspectable equipment. I know very little about railroad equipment, but I do understand there is a lot of it parked in yards that no inspector will ever allow out on busy freight lines without a helluva lot of renovation being doing on it.

If I find more, I’ll come back. Obviously, I _want_ this to exist.

ETA:

The details in this event give some sense of how difficult it is to wrangle any functioning Pullman cars today.

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/pullman-cars-return-to-their-birthplace-for-weekend-open-house/

This piece is where I learned that Dreamstar Lines was thinking of buying or leasing restored Pullman cars:

https://www.afar.com/magazine/dreamstar-plans-overnight-train-between-l-a-and-s-f

Somebody at Y-combinator has really dug into the private car stuff:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33460052

“For the less than 100 private cars in operation in America, why does Amtrak even offer this service?”

The answer they come up with is probably true and entirely misses the point; anyone familiar with the rail community knows perfectly well why private cars still get towed around by Amtrak — it is the pinnacle of The Dream and no one in the community wants to make it go away.

I had wondered about how many private cars there were — that’s fewer even than I had imagined.

Having established that any sleeper car operation is going to be buying new, let’s see what’s out there! Obviously, they will be buying it from Siemens Mobility, because that’s what everyone does.

https://www.railjournal.com/fleet/obb-unveils-new-generation-nightjet-cars/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=34980

For people wondering about Nightjet and whether it makes sense economically:

https://mediarail.wordpress.com/nightjet-renaissance-of-night-trains-in-europe/

Other details in that piece: since discontinuation of night train service on that route occurred around 2015, Nightjet was able to acquire those for its initial startup. But they are making enough that they can now buy new.

Sunday: a series of rabbit holes, walks

I walked with M., but no indoor visit.

I walked with R.

I lost a ton of time today to a series of rabbit holes; I already posted about Dreamstar Lines (I did do some laundry, so it wasn’t a complete loss, and the Pixel tablet and stand arrived and I got it partly set up, so there’s that, too). One of the rabbit holes involved the Galactic Starcruiser rumors; late in January, Disney pulled a permit to hire some awning company in Sanford to do general construction and this led to a bunch of sites spinning a bunch of theories about what was next. No one knows — literally, probably, I would imagine things are still in flux generally — but I went and looked at the website of the awning company and specifically the commercial gallery and they do, among other things, awnings for rectangular block buildings of the hotel type, where every single fucking window needs some kind of awning above it because Florida. The Galactic Starcruiser did not need those because no one inside was looking outside. I think the rumors suggesting maybe Disney will repurpose the Starcuiser building as office space is pretty plausible. I hope they reuse the interiors in future restaurants, shows, rides, on Disney Cruises, etc.

Next up! I read some stuff about NightJet and ODD selling its sleeper cars but R. found some stuff about ODD newer sleeper cars.

http://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/10/06/austrias-new-night-trains-are-connecting-vienna-with-germany-italy-and-the-netherlands

I have skimmed but not read it yet.

In the Grand Tradition of Previous Pointless Posts

I paired an old Fintie keyboard with the new Pixel tablet and am posting this from that combination.

It's fine. It is not going to be replacing any of my other options at least not while at home. I suppose if I totally fall in love with this thing, it might replace the small iPad for travel. Next up: is Birzzle available on this thing?