Running Bear’s June 2021 Coffee Shop


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Good morning..... A nice 60 to start and no dew on the lawn. Coffee Flo I need to make some noise and start mowing, after 7 of course got to follow the quiet time rules of 11pm to 7am. Oh wait the neighbor was up late playing music, dam retired folk. I guess it's ok after all if he needs his sleep he would've went to bed early right.
 
Just wondering, has anyone seen or heard from Jerome (wheeler1963) lately?
Good morning everyone as well. Started out yesterday trying to get more foam road bed down, and then of course, my wife came down….dishwasher not working…..got that cleaned up and working.
Jerome is doing okay from what I have heard, from another member taking a little break. He is busy at work I think taking a break from online stuff I believe.
Have to take my pool deck down this week so that will keep me away from trains as well, it was pretty rotted and I knew it was coming, just a bit of a big job.
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Morning all,

Currently clear and 77° with air you can wear this morning. Got to mow when I get home, so I'm stocking up on my water before I leave work.

I had a chance to look over the bottom of the pool last night and the good news is I found the leak. It is about 1" in from the pool seam, but I didn't have a chance last night to fix it. The pool is a 14' circle above ground frame type and the water is about 38" in depth. I looked into a new liner and it is no longer made. This pool is in its 6th season and wasn't made to be dismantled every fall, but can't overwinter with water in it. The vinyl is getting thin and I really think it should go after this season. We'll see what the wife thinks when it's tear down time.
 
Patrick -- good on you finding the leak! Hope you can make it through this season.

Jerome -- I have been wondering where/what he was?

GARY - You had better stock up on 'WHEATIES' -- that looks like real work!

Supposed to be 85F today ... Temps forecast starting to inch up. Be in the 100's in a week they say!
Maybe I will have some iced tea this morning to get ready?

I have to get on the road to SAN today to pick up daughter/kids from La June (never could spell that correctly).
They will be here for 6 weeks while being transferred to Japan! Add two adults and Two kids and two additional dogs to the fray here. I may need a shrink before long.
Gotta run - later gang!
 
Good morning all, man, am I tired.

All day training event yesterday. Strange how tiring sitting at a desk all day can be. Looking forward to some down time and then an early bed last night. Nope. Youngest daughter who stubbornly refuses to use her blind-cane, was visiting a new friend and said friend was going to drive her home. In his parking garage, she didn't see the concrete stairs so down she went. Called me absolutely hysterical. Not just from pain but from the frustration and fear of losing her sight and not being able to walk like a normal person again. Said she felt her independence was being stripped from her. I said, using her cane would give her MORE independence as she could walk without fear of going down stairs. Second time she fell in a week. Got her calmed down, but she was in a lot of pain, so when wifeykins finished her work gig, off we go to meet daughter at ER. No break, just a bone bruise on her shin bone. Painful. Home at 2300. Slept well - just not long enough.

Tile guy finishes today and we can use the floor Saturday morning. I did not finish the plumbing Wednesday, so hoping to get that work done today, as tomorrow is filling up with events. But must get the drains done.

The new sink is a little deeper than the previous one, and puts the drain from the disposal even with the wall stack, but lower than the tee from the non-disposal drain. I'm thinking I will have to lower the wall stack and move that tee down for better drainage. That 'water not running uphill' thing is a bit of a pain in the shorts at times. We're messing with so much of natural law these days, can't we get Uncle Joe to sign an executive order putting gravity in selective abeyance?

Tranes? As you can see, I can't even spell the word!

Said daughter is moving to new apartment next Friday. Guess who is on tap for all the heavy-lifting and loading. But hopefully, once we get her into new apartment, the summer slows down.

Please be patient with me - I'm just whining. I'll get over it soon.

Love the RR pics, gents, keep 'em coming!
 
Good morning global modelers. On the deck in Wisconsin that is shaded but only a 3 mph sometimes breeze. High today again to the mid or high 90’s. Right now it’s nice at 80.

pools, we had an above ground when we lived in Central Wisconsin. While the lake was maybe 30’ away the kids preferred playing in the pool. I never drained the pool for winter, a couple plastic pillows and lowered water under the cover. Gary, 1glance at your picture like Karl I thought outdoor benchwork. That will make a great patio area.

sherrel, I love having company but sometimes enough is enough. I feel your soon to be pain, the dogs would get to me

Patrick, good for finding the leak. I was thinking we would have some scuba story

Evictions, as a landlord to mainly college students in now 4 states and 10 cities many lessons have been learned since March of 2020. Number one is double the security fees, 2 don’t trust the local or state politician. 3. try not to rent to overprivileged brats. 4. don’t support the local colleges, when they told students to go home in March and closed campus, never mind…

Like I wrote yesterday evictions will sky rocket from the banks. I don’t think too many local landlords could afford the eviction fees if those renters are paying now after skipping a few months. I do know last September we raised all rent to new renters by $100 and will again this summer. 43% of our renters missed at least 2 months rent since April 2020. Just in Madison we had of 1200+ apartments 703 totally skipped that we kept the security deposit. 2 actually took us to court to get the security deposit back and we spent more as a fact of principle defending our actions then it was worth. 2020 is the 1st year since Terry and I started in the rental business since 1990 and 1991 that we didn’t take a penny for ourselves and had a loss.

If you encourage your kids to be landlords, tell them to rent in college towns. It has been great for Terry and me. This is and has been an anomaly of 16 months. By Xmas if the Covid is contained as it might be now you will see lots of landlords getting out and filing bankruptcy. I have lots of renter stories…

the trains, ever have that feeling that you might have been screwed? I purchased way too many items on FaceBook and HOSwap on Wednesday. One of the sales has been creeping me out since! PayPal is my friend, I hope I don’t have to use its protections.

Because of our 90f degree plus heat I have been in the trainroom. Yesterday I was at my bench cutting up spures from kits already built up. I should have taken a picture but Terry popped in and said you’ve been in here 3 hours what are you doing. I had my bench covered, I have enough poles, conduit, water lines and whatever for 100’s of layouts. Spray paint today and those missing details will be added to buildings and the landscape.

Does anyone know the rough size diameter of a natural gas pipe for a factory environment? I am thinking 12” but I can’t find any information online.
 
Good morning all, man, am I tired.

All day training event yesterday. Strange how tiring sitting at a desk all day can be. Looking forward to some down time and then an early bed last night. Nope. Youngest daughter who stubbornly refuses to use her blind-cane, was visiting a new friend and said friend was going to drive her home. In his parking garage, she didn't see the concrete stairs so down she went. Called me absolutely hysterical. Not just from pain but from the frustration and fear of losing her sight and not being able to walk like a normal person again. Said she felt her independence was being stripped from her. I said, using her cane would give her MORE independence as she could walk without fear of going down stairs. Second time she fell in a week. Got her calmed down, but she was in a lot of pain, so when wifeykins finished her work gig, off we go to meet daughter at ER. No break, just a bone bruise on her shin bone. Painful. Home at 2300. Slept well - just not long enough.

Tile guy finishes today and we can use the floor Saturday morning. I did not finish the plumbing Wednesday, so hoping to get that work done today, as tomorrow is filling up with events. But must get the drains done.

The new sink is a little deeper than the previous one, and puts the drain from the disposal even with the wall stack, but lower than the tee from the non-disposal drain. I'm thinking I will have to lower the wall stack and move that tee down for better drainage. That 'water not running uphill' thing is a bit of a pain in the shorts at times. We're messing with so much of natural law these days, can't we get Uncle Joe to sign an executive order putting gravity in selective abeyance?

Tranes? As you can see, I can't even spell the word!

Said daughter is moving to new apartment next Friday. Guess who is on tap for all the heavy-lifting and loading. But hopefully, once we get her into new apartment, the summer slows down.

Please be patient with me - I'm just whining. I'll get over it soon.

Love the RR pics, gents, keep 'em coming!

Steve, whine away. We can take it, we understand it as a group and it’s a diner!

TomO
 
Well howdy there internet MRR people. It's Troy again...

Big day at the game store tomorrow. Fist time since Covid hit that we're vaxxed up enough to gather in one place for some WWII 28mm gaming action. And, with the WWII ship game, there's interest in a weeknight game gathering as well.

To top all that off, friends out in LA are running a Napoleonics escalation league. This involves rotating games. Every two weeks, the allowable size of the army grows. Rack up some victory points and winner gets something special. (Maybe a bowl of Grape Nuts if Hughie will share :p ) Our group is interested in starting such up as well.

I finished my British Naval Fleet. I'll take a break from painting the Italians, and get some of my French Napoleonic forces on the painting table. If we start that this fall, I'll need to have four or five battalions done by then.

Still writing. Decided to abandon the great train heist from the past, and went with West Coast Pirates.

Here's some of the ships I painted for His Royal Majesty's fleet. A few bits of touch up yet, but they're done enough.
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Good Morning All. Partly cloudy and 75°, humidity is back up to 93%, quite high but not unexpected with all of the residual moisture from the recent rains, and the lack of any wind to dry things out. Some areas were dry enough to start mowing again yesterday. Spent some quality time pressure canning another batch of green beans yesterday. I had one failure out of the seven pints. I'm not sure why but I get one every now and then. Looks like another batch Saturday. I worked a bit on cleaning up the debris from earlier crops to add to the compost pile. Lot's more to do.
One effect that all of the rain and cooler temperatures has had is that the tomato plants are going wild.
They have outgrown their cages already.
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While the camera angle doesn't quite show it, they are taller than I am at 5'4".

Thanks for the likes and comments yesterday regarding the minor progress that I have been making despite all other tasks; Tom O, Rick, Hughie, Gary, Chad, Karl, Moermusic, Justin, Guy, Troy, Tom, Sherrel, Garry, Patrick.

Just a banana nut muffin for me this morning Flo. I lost four pounds in the last week and I want to keep the streak going.

Between the pool, gardening, canning and honey-do's yesterday, I didn't get much time in the train shed. I painted and added a few more details including the roof stuff and a few more front porch items.

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In the second picture you can see some of the rest of them, trellis with vines, dog, boy, stack of tools etc. The white blob on the left is an ice machine. The fruit crates include tomatoes, bell peppers, apples, melons and oranges. The green scoop is in a pickle barrel.

Tom O - I can't speak for your son's friends in Austin, but here in the North Texas area, if you don't have a job, it's your own fault. There are jobs everywhere and I don't mean entry-level McDonald type jobs. Plenty of those as well. Many of these snowflakes want a job paying what they were making before, and are unwilling to take a few $$ pay cut. Fact is that many of those jobs still pay more than unemployment (with extras) but they just got lazy during the pandemic. The unemployment will run out soon enough. I keep reading and hearing about Covid fears; get the damn vaccine people. It's available to anyone anywhere and it's free!
I agree about the stock market. Capitalism works no matter who's in charge.
Moermusic - Child care is one (of several) reasons that we chose early on to be a single income family. It changed a bit when my wife got a weekend job as a live-in home health care person, and was able to work from 6:00 pm Friday through 6:00 pm Sunday and got paid 48 hours a week. At the time my workplace was on a four day ten hour shift schedule and things worked out for us. The lady eventually died so that job ended and we worked out something different. By then we needed to start saving for our kids college and she got a regular job and we had to use day care for our son for two years. Even though the girls were both under ten years old, they were able to let themselves into the house after the school bus dropped them off until I got home about 30 minutes later.
Gary - Looks like you have your work cut out for you on the deck. Too bad that work will interfere with your progress.
Patrick - Good for you finding the leak. At 38" that shouldn't be too hard to fix. I can get mine (when I know where they are) at 52" using a scuba mask and holding my breath. Hmmmh! 14' diameter isn't a standard size. No wonder you are having a hard time finding a replacement liner. None of my reliable liner suppliers carry that size.

Everyone have a great weekend. Stay safe.
 
Good Morning All. Partly cloudy and 75°, humidity is back up to 93%, quite high but not unexpected with all of the residual moisture from the recent rains, and the lack of any wind to dry things out. Some areas were dry enough to start mowing again yesterday. Spent some quality time pressure canning another batch of green beans yesterday. I had one failure out of the seven pints. I'm not sure why but I get one every now and then. Looks like another batch Saturday. I worked a bit on cleaning up the debris from earlier crops to add to the compost pile. Lot's more to do.
One effect that all of the rain and cooler temperatures has had is that the tomato plants are going wild.
They have outgrown their cages already.View attachment 128968
View attachment 128967
While the camera angle doesn't quite show it, they are taller than I am at 5'4".

Thanks for the likes and comments yesterday regarding the minor progress that I have been making despite all other tasks; Tom O, Rick, Hughie, Gary, Chad, Karl, Moermusic, Justin, Guy, Troy, Tom, Sherrel, Garry, Patrick.

Just a banana nut muffin for me this morning Flo. I lost four pounds in the last week and I want to keep the streak going.

Between the pool, gardening, canning and honey-do's yesterday, I didn't get much time in the train shed. I painted and added a few more details including the roof stuff and a few more front porch items.

View attachment 128969
View attachment 128970
In the second picture you can see some of the rest of them, trellis with vines, dog, boy, stack of tools etc. The white blob on the left is an ice machine. The fruit crates include tomatoes, bell peppers, apples, melons and oranges. The green scoop is in a pickle barrel.

Tom O - I can't speak for your son's friends in Austin, but here in the North Texas area, if you don't have a job, it's your own fault. There are jobs everywhere and I don't mean entry-level McDonald type jobs. Plenty of those as well. Many of these snowflakes want a job paying what they were making before, and are unwilling to take a few $$ pay cut. Fact is that many of those jobs still pay more than unemployment (with extras) but they just got lazy during the pandemic. The unemployment will run out soon enough. I keep reading and hearing about Covid fears; get the damn vaccine people. It's available to anyone anywhere and it's free!
I agree about the stock market. Capitalism works no matter who's in charge.
Moermusic - Child care is one (of several) reasons that we chose early on to be a single income family. It changed a bit when my wife got a weekend job as a live-in home health care person, and was able to work from 6:00 pm Friday through 6:00 pm Sunday and got paid 48 hours a week. At the time my workplace was on a four day ten hour shift schedule and things worked out for us. The lady eventually died so that job ended and we worked out something different. By then we needed to start saving for our kids college and she got a regular job and we had to use day care for our son for two years. Even though the girls were both under ten years old, they were able to let themselves into the house after the school bus dropped them off until I got home about 30 minutes later.
Gary - Looks like you have your work cut out for you on the deck. Too bad that work will interfere with your progress.
Patrick - Good for you finding the leak. At 38" that shouldn't be too hard to fix. I can get mine (when I know where they are) at 52" using a scuba mask and holding my breath. Hmmmh! 14' diameter isn't a standard size. No wonder you are having a hard time finding a replacement liner. None of my reliable liner suppliers carry that size.

Everyone have a great weekend. Stay safe.

So correct on the job market. Lotsof jobs in the Austin area. The son’s friends are/were musicians, comedians and stage hands and couldn’t afford Austin’s rent. Some did McDonalds but with kids it didn’t work out. Too bad, he had some great down to earth Austin friends. Gig workers and he didn’t think they qualified for the stimulus.

Nice full garden

Tom
 
I purchased way too many items on FaceBook and HOSwap on Wednesday. One of the sales has been creeping me out since! PayPal is my friend, I hope I don’t have to use its protections.
Every once in while the Swap has a really good deal , I have only used it once though . Lately it seems to getting a few dealers in it. You should be Ok as long as you didn't use Paypal F&F.

If I were a landlord in Austin with single family dwellings and couldn't get my rent and / or any support from the city for evictions , I'd be looking to sell . They say anything under $400,000 doesn't last more than a few hours on the market.
 
I remember it takes around 90 days to evict, unless they appeal, then it takes even longer. If a landlord started the process the day the moratorium was lifted, it will still be another three months before they can get the old renters out.
In Texas, most of them will probably be tenants of sufferance ,meaning they no longer have a valid lease since they failed to pay , So the landlord can post a notice to vacate with 3 days. If they fail to comply you can file eviction on them ($100 - $150) .

Thats why cities like Austin usually come up with a program to pay/loan money to the tenants so they can pay something on their leases , otherwise they can be evicted rather quickly when the moratorium is lifted. They might already have eviction on them now , it just may not be executed until the ban is lifted .
 
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Evening fellers. I hope everyone is well. Tapped into my curious creative side today. I ordered a pwm controller a week ago. It finally decided to show up today. At $8 I figured why not try it out and see. After watching a video on the matter. I decided I should give it a shot and see. Results have been really good. I was honestly surprised at how well this works. This is what I got:
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This is what I did to make it more layout worthy:
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Not perfect but it works. Thats all i have for now. Yall have a good night.
 
Good morning global modelers from outside on the deck in So. Central Wisconsin. The 30% chance of rain at 3pm yesterday resulted in high winds, down trees and about 3/4” of rain in 20 minutes. Definitely needed the rain. Overnight the almost 5% chance of rain resulted in almost an inch of needed rain between 3 and 6am. Now it’s 77f degrees heading into the mid 80’s down about 12 degrees from yesterday. There is a freshness in the air this morning plus a very nice 8 mph breeze.

Tom
 
I am having issues this morning! Sorry. Typing the above and a bird decided I was a good spot to take a dump on. Terry is still laughing.

I have heard from all the sellers yesterday and this morning with tracking numbers except the guy I am nervous about. GeeTee, if a seller or buyer won’t do PayPal I won’t deal with them. My PayPal is tied to a credit card I only use for train purposes and I don’t do friends and family. I am pretty well protected by both PayPal and if need be by the Credit Card company.

The daughter and family are off today to Florida for the week. School was out as of Wednesday and they want to celebrate relief from the Covid rules at school.

Terry asked for a list of places to go to this week in Minnesota, Eastern Iowa and Wisconsin. Strange how my list hard great places of interest plus good train hobby shops along the way.

We had a family Zoom last night. The son is fine without us and his aunt, the daughter and family were excited to be packed up for their trip, my brother shot a 68 on a hard course in Desert Mountain, he also said he has a decent offer on the house. My sister is ready for her 6/23 operation and the niece and boy friend were in Moab, Utah exploring and hiking. Funny how the quarterly meeting is less about business then ever, but always good to see faces instead of just phone voices.

Willie, loved the garden pictures but especially the one of you guarding or overseeing the plot. Don’t take this is a negative vein please, your picture in the garden reminded me of a visit to The Morton Arboretum outside of Chicago a few summers ago. There were 8 or nine of these guards, this one was a little bigger then 5’4 clocking in at 50’ or something like that. My own pictures are on an external harddrive in the house so this is from their website. No idea who the kid is.

have a great day, enjoy the weather if you can
TomO


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Morning all,

Found a second leak, but I needed a new repair kit as the glue hardened over the winter. Nothing like being in a wet swimsuit to find that out. So out of the pool, get dried enough to go in the house, change into some clothes, go to the hardware store get another kit, and then get called that the plumber hasn't been to the kid's house yet, and they both get called into work. So pool still leaking, and will be later today before I can get to it.

Saw a older SF engine running the other day #75. Quite faded in the blue scheme. I have not been able to find anything on it.
 
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