troyphoto
Snarky Old Fart (in training)
All you need to know about cameras and photography:
"f/8 and be there." ~ Weegee
and
Rule of thirds
Running Bear's December 2021 Coffee Shop
- Thread starter bnsf971
- Start date
- Status
"f/8 and be there." ~ Weegee
and
Rule of thirds
CambriaArea51
Well-Known Member
I guess they forget what happened in Germany in the 30's.
TLOC
Well-Known Member
Good morning from Wisconsin where another night of sleep has occurre. Better then the no sleep at all in 36 hours this past week but I really would like a solid 7-8 hours.
Yesterday afternoon’s hockey game between the Ladies of Wisconsin Badgers and the foes from Minnesota called gophers. Minnesota has good teams in hockey always. The Badger Ladies the last 7 years the games have been close but no one dominated the game except this Friday night and the afternoon game yesterday. Of the 6 periods I would give domination to the Gophers in 4.5 of them. UW lost one and tied yesterday but lost in the meaningless shoot out.
Modeling. The train room reorganization effort continued yesterday. i posted the before picture the other day, here is the after
It looks the same because it is the same. I got in the train room a few times yesterday but the intended project was avoided. Maybe today.
Lots of frost outside this morning so I will not go on my walk until it warms. The high today should hit 38f degrees but I see the tree tops are moving around so it will feel cool.
Another hockey game today but this time not for highly payed because of their scholarship, “student athletes”. The 8 year old grand son plays at 2:30 and he is this weeks goalie. His dad says he started out hating it. He has been studying up on being a goalie and when he read about playing angles, cutting down the area and how in books, he got excited. He is one of those math geniuses and this goalie stuff is right up his alley. When I talked to him last night I always ask if he is having fun being the goalie. His immediate answer was yes and then got out his whiteboard so he could explain how to play the angles. My eyes rolled.
Be safe, have a great day
Tomo
Yesterday afternoon’s hockey game between the Ladies of Wisconsin Badgers and the foes from Minnesota called gophers. Minnesota has good teams in hockey always. The Badger Ladies the last 7 years the games have been close but no one dominated the game except this Friday night and the afternoon game yesterday. Of the 6 periods I would give domination to the Gophers in 4.5 of them. UW lost one and tied yesterday but lost in the meaningless shoot out.
Modeling. The train room reorganization effort continued yesterday. i posted the before picture the other day, here is the after
It looks the same because it is the same. I got in the train room a few times yesterday but the intended project was avoided. Maybe today.
Lots of frost outside this morning so I will not go on my walk until it warms. The high today should hit 38f degrees but I see the tree tops are moving around so it will feel cool.
Another hockey game today but this time not for highly payed because of their scholarship, “student athletes”. The 8 year old grand son plays at 2:30 and he is this weeks goalie. His dad says he started out hating it. He has been studying up on being a goalie and when he read about playing angles, cutting down the area and how in books, he got excited. He is one of those math geniuses and this goalie stuff is right up his alley. When I talked to him last night I always ask if he is having fun being the goalie. His immediate answer was yes and then got out his whiteboard so he could explain how to play the angles. My eyes rolled.
Be safe, have a great day
Tomo
OBTC 1909
Well-Known Member
Good morning all! Rainy and 42 here, heading up to around 60 for the day. Supposed to be rainy all day I believe.
Catching up on the last couple days here in the forum. I was busy pretty much all day yesterday and didn't even stop by here. My parents came out to visit early and then my wife and I went out for the day. Had a great meal at Texas Roadhouse followed by some shopping she wanted to do.
We stopped in at Hobby Lobby so my wife could find some decorative stuff for the house. I went back to the hobbies area and found very little to interest me. Wish they had a real model train hobby area instead of a couple cheapo Bachmann sets. I don't have an LHS anywhere near so I wish HL would pick up the slack. The closest LHS is about 80 miles from here.
All the Covid stricken family members seem to be pretty much better. My grandson goes back and forth from feeling better to not, which is what I went through when I had it. Hoping he's over it completely soon. He's really missing competing with his basketball team and I know it kills him watching videos of them playing without him.
That's about it from here. Hope you all have a great day!
Catching up on the last couple days here in the forum. I was busy pretty much all day yesterday and didn't even stop by here. My parents came out to visit early and then my wife and I went out for the day. Had a great meal at Texas Roadhouse followed by some shopping she wanted to do.
We stopped in at Hobby Lobby so my wife could find some decorative stuff for the house. I went back to the hobbies area and found very little to interest me. Wish they had a real model train hobby area instead of a couple cheapo Bachmann sets. I don't have an LHS anywhere near so I wish HL would pick up the slack. The closest LHS is about 80 miles from here.
All the Covid stricken family members seem to be pretty much better. My grandson goes back and forth from feeling better to not, which is what I went through when I had it. Hoping he's over it completely soon. He's really missing competing with his basketball team and I know it kills him watching videos of them playing without him.
That's about it from here. Hope you all have a great day!
TLOC
Well-Known Member
Tom,
IMO! Folks don’t remember, don’t care about and won’t spend the time studying history. I agree with your statement.
TomO
TLOC
Well-Known Member
Ken, just an innocent question that I am asking myself today as the LHS opens at noon today.
Do you miss the brick and mortar hobby shop because you:
1. you would prefer to buy there and support shopping locally
2. do you prefer the LHS because of the characters that shop or work there
3. do you care about getting the best pricing
4. want to feel and touch the product before purchasing
5. something else
I like my LHS and he even had curbside delivery to the trunk/hatch during Wisconsin’s mandated Covid shutdown in 2020.
I prefer to touch the product before buying.
He offers a flat 20% off of the Walthers suggested retail prices, that easily allows me to compare to online pricing. Not applicable though on AtHearn and is Not a Scaletrains.com seller
My LHS is 5 miles away and shipping is free if you don’t count the car usage and gasoline to get there
He is a great guy who has excellent stock in scratch building supplies
But, I still buy 80% based on receipts the wife keeps track of online. I guess I am a price shopper
TomO
OBTC 1909
Well-Known Member
Hi Tom,
Everything you listed is exactly why I like the LHS. The one I mentioned in my post is great. The owner is friendly, knowledgeable and I've never once been there when he didn't take a little something off the price for me. Also, I'm one of those people that wants the item I'm buying right now instead of placing an order and waiting days for it to arrive. I love looking at things up close and actually seeing what I'm buying instead of looking at photos and then hoping I'm getting what I wanted. I greatly prefer in person shopping over online.
santafewillie
Same Ol' Buzzard
Good Morning All. Cloudy and 57° here in North Central Texas, no snow on the cacti today. Another mid-70's degree day today before the cold front hits just before dawn tomorrow. Monday's high will be at midnight tonight and will only get to 55° tomorrow. Starts to warm up after that to maybe 81° on Friday.
Another beautiful sunset last night.
I don't remember much of what I accomplished yesterday, but I did a lot of outdoor stuff. One thing of significance is that I started the prep for next spring's garden by hauling aged wood chips from the tree pruners that were contracted by the power company in 2018, over to the garden site for soil loosening and fertilizer. After spreading about, I'll cover them with wood ashes from the heater and grass clippings and shredded leaves before working the whole mess into the soil. Compost and other organic materials will go down about a week prior to planting in about 60 days. That will continue today and today is also a wood-splitting day. Plenty of exercise in store.
Thanks everyone for the likes and comments yesterday regarding the building project; Rick, Karl, Guy, Christian, Sherrel, Hughie, Tom O, Gary, Curt, Steve J, Tom Jesse.
French toast and bacon today Flo. I have some carb allowances that I can fill.
The building project continues out in the train shed. It is now the Perfect Perk Cafe, a coffee house to compete with this one.
Finished the wall painting.
I am not going to use mortar lines on this structure as I want to give the newly painted look.
I added the windows back and included a background on the second floor front ones.
Haven't found a scene for the ground floor yet.
Jesse - Be safe on your trip to Raleigh.
See below comments to Curt regarding my brother.
Christian - You're kind of getting out of your comfort zone with all of that scenery, aren't you???
Todd - I appreciate your diatribe yesterday regarding immunity. I believe that the human body (for most people) is the greatest producer of antibodies. My current philosophy is socially distance and wear a mask when needed, although the mask is more "window-dressing" than anything. I have avoided most large gatherings because I don't always trust others. I did get the vaccines, but have never gotten a flu shot and never had the flu. Yep! I ate dirt in my younger days.
Troy - Nice war gaming scenes.
Curt - Thanks. You were probably on hiatus when I described my brother's situation last summer. He waited almost three years after he first started having trouble swallowing, before seeing a doctor when finally he couldn't swallow at all anymore. By then the tumor was so large and it was at stage 4 that it couldn't be removed. Besides not being able to swallow, he can no longer talk and has lost use of his right arm due to compression of the nerves and the pressure on the larynx. He's fed through a feeding tube three times daily and has been in home hospice care since stopping all chemo treatments sometime in July or so. The original projection of not living until Christmas has been extended indefinitely.
Steve J - Bless you for all of your work.
Joe - Like many, I have been skeptical of the figures/statistics thrown at us regarding Covid from all of our leaders since it's inception. The flu numbers that I posted yesterday are a great example which I got directly from the CDC website. How do we go from 42M to 1600 in just a year???
Thankfully here in Texas, while your property appraisal can go up, most property taxes are frozen for anyone at age 65. Mine were frozen when my wife hit 65 two years ahead of me. The following year the appraisal went up 28%. As it was explained to me, the tax appraiser failed to keep current for over six years and they were catching up. I knew that mine had not gone up in quite a while, but I hadn't kept track. It's like that out here in the boonies. When I first bought the home and 15 acres, my taxes were just $90 per year for almost eight years before they discovered their error. I had filed the deed correctly, including the homestead exemption, reflecting that the house was there but they missed that until someone actually came by and noticed. It jumped to $602 the following year.
Today is National Repeal Day, resulting in the end of Prohibition. Visit a speakeasy to commemorate the end of a failed social experiment. Today is also Bathtub Party Day, which can be done alone or with friends.
OK, today will be a momentous day here on the forum. I should get my 20,000 reaction score in just a few minutes. Presently I am 3 shy of that milestone and I have all of you to thank. I don't post for the likes/reactions, which weren't even in existence until I had been a member for nine years or so! But they show the level of appreciation that my work conveys and this is the reason for thanks.
Everybody have a great day and stay safe.
Another beautiful sunset last night.
I don't remember much of what I accomplished yesterday, but I did a lot of outdoor stuff. One thing of significance is that I started the prep for next spring's garden by hauling aged wood chips from the tree pruners that were contracted by the power company in 2018, over to the garden site for soil loosening and fertilizer. After spreading about, I'll cover them with wood ashes from the heater and grass clippings and shredded leaves before working the whole mess into the soil. Compost and other organic materials will go down about a week prior to planting in about 60 days. That will continue today and today is also a wood-splitting day. Plenty of exercise in store.
Thanks everyone for the likes and comments yesterday regarding the building project; Rick, Karl, Guy, Christian, Sherrel, Hughie, Tom O, Gary, Curt, Steve J, Tom Jesse.
French toast and bacon today Flo. I have some carb allowances that I can fill.
The building project continues out in the train shed. It is now the Perfect Perk Cafe, a coffee house to compete with this one.
Finished the wall painting.
I am not going to use mortar lines on this structure as I want to give the newly painted look.
I added the windows back and included a background on the second floor front ones.
Haven't found a scene for the ground floor yet.
Jesse - Be safe on your trip to Raleigh.
See below comments to Curt regarding my brother.
Christian - You're kind of getting out of your comfort zone with all of that scenery, aren't you???
Todd - I appreciate your diatribe yesterday regarding immunity. I believe that the human body (for most people) is the greatest producer of antibodies. My current philosophy is socially distance and wear a mask when needed, although the mask is more "window-dressing" than anything. I have avoided most large gatherings because I don't always trust others. I did get the vaccines, but have never gotten a flu shot and never had the flu. Yep! I ate dirt in my younger days.
Troy - Nice war gaming scenes.
Curt - Thanks. You were probably on hiatus when I described my brother's situation last summer. He waited almost three years after he first started having trouble swallowing, before seeing a doctor when finally he couldn't swallow at all anymore. By then the tumor was so large and it was at stage 4 that it couldn't be removed. Besides not being able to swallow, he can no longer talk and has lost use of his right arm due to compression of the nerves and the pressure on the larynx. He's fed through a feeding tube three times daily and has been in home hospice care since stopping all chemo treatments sometime in July or so. The original projection of not living until Christmas has been extended indefinitely.
Steve J - Bless you for all of your work.
Joe - Like many, I have been skeptical of the figures/statistics thrown at us regarding Covid from all of our leaders since it's inception. The flu numbers that I posted yesterday are a great example which I got directly from the CDC website. How do we go from 42M to 1600 in just a year???
Thankfully here in Texas, while your property appraisal can go up, most property taxes are frozen for anyone at age 65. Mine were frozen when my wife hit 65 two years ahead of me. The following year the appraisal went up 28%. As it was explained to me, the tax appraiser failed to keep current for over six years and they were catching up. I knew that mine had not gone up in quite a while, but I hadn't kept track. It's like that out here in the boonies. When I first bought the home and 15 acres, my taxes were just $90 per year for almost eight years before they discovered their error. I had filed the deed correctly, including the homestead exemption, reflecting that the house was there but they missed that until someone actually came by and noticed. It jumped to $602 the following year.
Today is National Repeal Day, resulting in the end of Prohibition. Visit a speakeasy to commemorate the end of a failed social experiment. Today is also Bathtub Party Day, which can be done alone or with friends.
OK, today will be a momentous day here on the forum. I should get my 20,000 reaction score in just a few minutes. Presently I am 3 shy of that milestone and I have all of you to thank. I don't post for the likes/reactions, which weren't even in existence until I had been a member for nine years or so! But they show the level of appreciation that my work conveys and this is the reason for thanks.
Everybody have a great day and stay safe.
CHRISTIAΝ
Old French Guy
Willie, you're absolutely right !
santafewillie
Same Ol' Buzzard
While this wasn't directed at me, I still use the LHS (65 miles away) for all of the above reasons. It's a different one than I supported for 22 years because he retired and closed. I did use this one occasionally in that time. My main guy also regularly took a little extra off or comped a bottle of paint or glue since I always paid in cash and he didn't have to pay the credit card fees or deal with the bank with checks. Mainly I liked comparing in person and walking out with my purchases. He also sold everything at a 20% discount from the MSRP and since I passed within 2 miles every day on the way home from work, there was no shipping fees.
santafewillie
Same Ol' Buzzard
Congratulations OB Ken, you are #20,000.
I had serious talks with the LHS owner who retired regarding purchasing his business with cash, but he advised against it as he was no longer making serous money once I retired and cut back my purchases. I also wasn't too sure about taking a new job after three months of my retirement.
IronBeltKen
Lazy Daydreamer
Thanks Curt, I do appreciate the kind words! But it does seem - to me at least - that people who post their work in the MRH photo threads are among the "one-percenters" in terms of modeling talent, similar to Railroad Line Forums. Gonna be awhile before I reach that level.
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Greg@mnrr
Section Hand
Good Morning all you Model Railroaders out there....! No more politics after rising my blood pressure 20 points after thinking what's happening to me just a few blocks away. We live a long block from the country where there is no building right now because of the location being on the wrong side of the continental divide, so sewer and water from the village can't be supplied. In fact, our house sits on a continental divide as well as the Waukesha earth quake fault. We felt one earth quake several years ago. But, where they can build, it's apartment complexes with high rents. The complex down the street will have over 200 apartment units in a high quality complex where the apartments are filled as soon as they are completed and works starts on the next building.
The taxes on our wooded properties are way too high. Why should I pay school taxes when no kids live on the vacant land? The property tax bills will soon be here.
TomO: I like shopping at the LHS's but when I do, I spend more $$$ than I want to and my shopping list just gets larger and larger. I like to shop on-line since the shipping charges make-up for what I would spend on gasoline, plus drive time. And, service from the shops is great. I could drive to Hiawatha Hobbies, but I did a on-line order during the weekend and the order arrived on Tuesday via UPS.
Tom, nice train room!!!
Plus, I can drive to Walther's and fill my shopping lists. I have a punch card so after the card is filled, I get a $50.00 credit towards my next purchase. During slow periods the sales staff can talk model railroading.
I like LHS's, but there less and less of them around. I remember one shop in Milwaukee where the owner didn't take charge cards. He told me if his customers didn't have the cash to buy a item for their hobby, then they shouldn't be buying it. He gladly did lay-ways with little down for items like engines or expensive passenger cars. His shop catered to the advanced hobbyist and had mostly craftsmanship building kits, no Life Like plastic kits. The owner always had time to answer questions, no manner how elementary the questions. I still have a LaBelle snow plow kit and a wood caboose kit from his store in my spare kit drawer yet to be built.
I enjoyed getting away from the office to visit hobby shops. Nice break in the day and besides I had the comp time from being on call 24/7 and all the after hours phone calls I got.
I'm afraid that the brick and mortar hobby shops that do not do on-line business, will soon disappear. Hobby Lobby just doesn't cut it.
Two nights of little sleep because Riley kept me up!!! No doggy playtime at 3:00 AM for me.
I do enjoy MRH TrainMaster videos, but there seems to be too much of one or two model railroads being featured. I liked the video on how Joe Fugate got his layout ready for an op's session. He has his set of problems as well.
McLeod: We have an A&W Root Beer place in a small town near our cabin and it's decorated as late 1950's or early 1960's complete with a vintage jute box.
Cathy is doing all the X-mas decorating with my only job is straightening out the strings of lights. I like the mini-LED strings.
That's about all for now...............
Greg
###################
This is the control panel for my Saxeville Interchange. A custoom made picture frame holds the Lexan in place and I painted the Lexan from the back for a finished look to the panel. The panel is hingled so I can reach the wiring inside. I since have labeled the mini-toggle switches that operate the turnouts in the interchange. Most of the turnouts are cross-overs using two turnouts. In all there's 15 turnouts operated by Tortoise switch machines and all turnouts have Tomar LED signals. A small investment in capital equipment!-Greg
The taxes on our wooded properties are way too high. Why should I pay school taxes when no kids live on the vacant land? The property tax bills will soon be here.
TomO: I like shopping at the LHS's but when I do, I spend more $$$ than I want to and my shopping list just gets larger and larger. I like to shop on-line since the shipping charges make-up for what I would spend on gasoline, plus drive time. And, service from the shops is great. I could drive to Hiawatha Hobbies, but I did a on-line order during the weekend and the order arrived on Tuesday via UPS.
Tom, nice train room!!!
Plus, I can drive to Walther's and fill my shopping lists. I have a punch card so after the card is filled, I get a $50.00 credit towards my next purchase. During slow periods the sales staff can talk model railroading.
I like LHS's, but there less and less of them around. I remember one shop in Milwaukee where the owner didn't take charge cards. He told me if his customers didn't have the cash to buy a item for their hobby, then they shouldn't be buying it. He gladly did lay-ways with little down for items like engines or expensive passenger cars. His shop catered to the advanced hobbyist and had mostly craftsmanship building kits, no Life Like plastic kits. The owner always had time to answer questions, no manner how elementary the questions. I still have a LaBelle snow plow kit and a wood caboose kit from his store in my spare kit drawer yet to be built.
I enjoyed getting away from the office to visit hobby shops. Nice break in the day and besides I had the comp time from being on call 24/7 and all the after hours phone calls I got.
I'm afraid that the brick and mortar hobby shops that do not do on-line business, will soon disappear. Hobby Lobby just doesn't cut it.
Two nights of little sleep because Riley kept me up!!! No doggy playtime at 3:00 AM for me.
I do enjoy MRH TrainMaster videos, but there seems to be too much of one or two model railroads being featured. I liked the video on how Joe Fugate got his layout ready for an op's session. He has his set of problems as well.
McLeod: We have an A&W Root Beer place in a small town near our cabin and it's decorated as late 1950's or early 1960's complete with a vintage jute box.
Cathy is doing all the X-mas decorating with my only job is straightening out the strings of lights. I like the mini-LED strings.
That's about all for now...............
Greg
###################
This is the control panel for my Saxeville Interchange. A custoom made picture frame holds the Lexan in place and I painted the Lexan from the back for a finished look to the panel. The panel is hingled so I can reach the wiring inside. I since have labeled the mini-toggle switches that operate the turnouts in the interchange. Most of the turnouts are cross-overs using two turnouts. In all there's 15 turnouts operated by Tortoise switch machines and all turnouts have Tomar LED signals. A small investment in capital equipment!-Greg
TLOC
Well-Known Member
Ken, I disagree with you. Your work holds up against any bodies on any forum.
I think what you see on MRH is the hogging into a thread or renewing a thread, just to get their pictures in. I know every time I had something to write or show about my papermill quite a few jumped in to post there pictures and then…
A guy doesn’t have a papermill and shows his scrap yard because he or someone flipped the discussion. Check the weekly photo thread. Every week it’s the same guys and quite a few of those folks belong to the Rustbucket forums and 98% of there work is stellar. A lot of the great pictures they admit are photoshopped. My pictures are what is in my photo file untouched and true life.
Railroadline forums is a different animal. I am amazed by the modeling skills they post and they are a friendly enjoyable bunch always willing to help or explain better
Don’t put yourself down
TomO
PRR Modeler
Well-Known Member
Afternoon All,
Spent about 4 hours in the train room today. I finished up the ground cover around the roundhouse except for weeds and vegetation that I plan on doing tomorrow. I'll post some pictures after that. I cleaned all the tracks and paid special attention to the turntable pit (which I wasn't smart enough to cover) and tested operations by rotating the bridge 360 in both directions. Lastly, I put Pennsy concrete bumpers at the ends of the tracks.
Steve- Congratulations on the future SIL. You have my respect also.
TomO- I scratch my head a lot over the things happening these days and I'm very glad I grew up when I did. I thought you posted the picture again so we could try to find what changed! LOL.
Jaz- Common sense is no longer common. Sounds like you and your husband were smart when you retired.
Gary- My perspective says that's a lot of snow.
Guy- That will be a great looking interior.
Ken- We have a combo hobby shop locally which can be hit or miss. There is an outstanding train store in Sarasota about 2 hours away from me.
Willie- Nice looking building. I must have been tied up with Mom because I don't remember about your brother having cancer.
Greg- Don't you know we have to pay more and more for other's freebies in our ever-expanding welfare state.
I hope everyone has a good night.
Spent about 4 hours in the train room today. I finished up the ground cover around the roundhouse except for weeds and vegetation that I plan on doing tomorrow. I'll post some pictures after that. I cleaned all the tracks and paid special attention to the turntable pit (which I wasn't smart enough to cover
) and tested operations by rotating the bridge 360 in both directions. Lastly, I put Pennsy concrete bumpers at the ends of the tracks.Steve- Congratulations on the future SIL. You have my respect also.
TomO- I scratch my head a lot over the things happening these days and I'm very glad I grew up when I did. I thought you posted the picture again so we could try to find what changed! LOL.
Jaz- Common sense is no longer common. Sounds like you and your husband were smart when you retired.
Gary- My perspective says that's a lot of snow.
Guy- That will be a great looking interior.
Ken- We have a combo hobby shop locally which can be hit or miss. There is an outstanding train store in Sarasota about 2 hours away from me.
Willie- Nice looking building. I must have been tied up with Mom because I don't remember about your brother having cancer.
Greg- Don't you know we have to pay more and more for other's freebies in our ever-expanding welfare state.
I hope everyone has a good night.
- Status
