Running Bear's March 2022 Coffee Shop


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If I had more time I would play "Hearts of Iron" it is what "Third Reich" should have been on the PC.
I loved those old Avalon Hill board games!

HJearts of Iron is great. All the other games form Paradox (IIRC) are great but Europa Universalis (whatever number they are up to) is really good.

The "Third Reich" PC games was a disappointment. The board game is much better.

I've been thinking about picking up the latest versions of ASL. I was a big Squad Leader fan (have almost 2 full sets of original SL and all the add-ons) and also picked up some of the original ASL stuff when it came out but didn't do much with it. I wqas looking last year and it has been revamped and has a new home and it looks really good.
 
Good morning. It's windy and 46.
My wife's condition has improved quite a bit since they started treating her for the UTI.
According to the hospital, my wife refused rehab. My wife says she was never asked, and the doctor told her she didn't need it. If we said or did anything about it, I'm sure there would be a massive case of CYA, with bad feelings and attorney fees, and little else.
I DO know this time she will be going to a physical rehab center.
 
Patrick, I miss the old computers games that came with detailed story/instruction booklets.
Now everything is mostly downloaded. My grandsons and my son love the streaming service Steam.
If I had more time I would play "Hearts of Iron" it is what "Third Reich" should have been on the PC.
I loved those old Avalon Hill board games!
Louis, you should check out the John Tiller game series. Now being published under "Wargame Design Studios" as John passed away about a year or so ago. Many of those series 'play' like the old boardgames. I am big into Squad Battles, a tactical squad and individual vehicle series that has titles from WW1 to Modern era.


I also do a bit of scenario play-test and design work for the Naval Campaigns series.
 
I've been thinking about picking up the latest versions of ASL. I was a big Squad Leader fan (have almost 2 full sets of original SL and all the add-ons) and also picked up some of the original ASL stuff when it came out but didn't do much with it. I wqas looking last year and it has been revamped and has a new home and it looks really good.
Shameless plug time.

The blog I edit has a good series of articles on ASL, as well as some of the classic, and new computer games. AND, our grand poobah of a publisher is good friends with John Tiller, so we cover those games as well.

Here's the link to the ASL channel on the blog. You can backtrack to get the other topics.
 
Morning all,

Ordering a new laptop for the wife. She got up in her power lift chair and when she did her computer slid part way under it, she didn't see it and crushed it. Screen is badly cracked and the lower case is cracked. She'd been having issues with charging as the cord wiggles in jack. I can replace the screen for a little over $100 with shipping, but concerned that it may have other issues. She's using it with a long HDMI cord plugged into the tv.

Amongst the stuff unboxed yesterday was my food dehydrator. I looked and looked for that over the past 9.5 years and was never able to locate it. Wife was sure we tossed it when we tossed to other one. Apparently I hadn't looked in the right place as the box was even marked Dehydrator. Still have boxes we haven't opened since we packed them to move to Missouri in late 2012.

As far as the games go, so far none work with Windows 11 (Not any surprise). Sometime about 2010\2011 Microsoft put out a hotfix patch that killed the ability of programs doing a security check to see if you had a real disc. This was for Windows 7 and 8 and naturally would be built into Windows 10+. You could uninstall the hotfix, but not on Windows 10.

Terry: Glad to hear the wife is doing better.

BBL
 
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well, howdy there, internet people, and closeted gamers of all types

It's Troy again. Today we'll talk about animals eating cars

Weigh-in 219 this morning. That's .2 # down from yesterday.
Not bad for no exercise, and only one bowl of chili after my breakfast of bacon and coffee. (did have a few handfuls of mixed nuts)

Wife and her sis #1 drove down to mom's place yesterday, in Sis's Subaru outback.

I get a call: "What's it mean when the coolant too hot light comes on?"

Oh, boy. "Probably a stuck thermostat. Pull over and let it cool down."

"We're right outside of Subway where we were going to get sandwiches..."

they didn't all back, so I assumed I was free to go about my day. When wife returned, she said their cousins had been over, and checked the car. Mind you, these gents are more used to small engines, and cars with carburetors.

After hearing their inexperienced run-down, as relayed by my wife... seems the overflow hose from the radiator to the plastic coolant jug is missing. "There was a hole on that jug, but no hose or anything in it."

Where sis lives is in a downtown condo surrounded by parkland. BUT they only have outdoor parking. She's had her Subaru's wires munched on by critters that come over to get the goodies (nuts, birdseed, etc) residents toss from their balconies.

Seems Subaru has switched to soy-based wire plastic

not sure if the hoses are that way too, but, as much as I liked my old Subaru Forester, I don't want to get another. Seems that critters love chewing the wires. And, our garages here are just reformed carports. We have chipmunks that get in on a regular basis. I really don't want to feet them my car.

Sis in law may want to trade her's in soon.

EDIT: I'm quickly finding out that most auto makers have switched to Soy Based Wiring.
 
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According to the hospital, my wife refused rehab. My wife says she was never asked, and the doctor told her she didn't need it. If we said or did anything about it, I'm sure there would be a massive case of CYA, with bad feelings and attorney fees, and little else.
Terry: I agree with your thoughts here, Ever since the hospitals found a way to keep family out of the process, they have pretty much done what they wanted. Important that Marie is doing much better. Hopefully the rehabilitation will help her.

Mike: Happy you are doing better. Take care.

Lee : Love the road paving machine. Nice photos.

She'd been having issues with charging as the cord wiggles in jack
Patrick: Out of curiosity, is this a Dell? Reason I ask, is that that the cord wiggling in the jack is the primary issue with hers. Since we are looking to replace her lap top, and want to avoid what appears to be Dell's Achilles Heel.
Wouldn't that photo count as an early Conrail paint scheme?
I also made a concrete pad for the 2nd freight house. I only did a mid-length expansion joint on the 2 outer sections because you won't be able to see any more than that.
Curt: I don't know if IB Ken would agree. ;) The GP30 unveiled a lot of new color schemes...the Yellow and Green scheme on the Reading, replacing OD Green, B&O's solid blue "Sunburst" scheme, and PRR's "Keystone" scheme.

Like your photos, you are making a ton of progress on your layout. How's your dad doing?

Flat car load 03-20-2022.jpg

Finished project. Something frequently observed at Port Newark, NJ. Have a second project involving either a 53' or 60' flat.

Shout out to the St. Peters mens basketball team, which defeated Murray State to advance to the next round of the NCAA tournament. St. Peters is located in Jersey City. Villanova plays Ohio State this afternoon. NHL Trade Deadline is 3PM tomorrow. Plan on watching the extravaganza on TSN, assuming ESPN+ streams it. Trade deadline day, never quite lives up to the hype.
 
Good morning all! 37 and sunny heading for 66 and sunny here in SE Illinois.

Took our grandson out for dinner yesterday. Took his sister a while back, so yesterday was his turn. He picked Buffalo Wild Wings so that's where we went. Had a good time and ate a lot of too expensive food, but it was fun and I'm glad we went. He's growing up so fast and I want to catch as many fun moments as we can while we can. He'll be in high school next year.

Nothing much on tap for today. Planning to watch the Indycar race followed by the NASCAR Cup race. No other plans right now and hoping to keep it that way.

Afternoon all,

Well after opening about a million boxes (most still sealed), we eliminated another shelving unit in the garage. Sadly, they all left and I'm still flattening boxes and cleaning the garage so I can get the cars back in. Surprisingly, I found the box of computer games I knew I still had. Been 8 years since I saw them last. Now to see how many work under Windows 10\11. I'm betting maybe a couple. Well back to it.
I had a bunch of old PC games in boxes a while back that I'd had since the 90's. Finally decided to just get rid of them. Hated to do it, but I was probably never going to play them again. A lot of money went to the now defunct Babbage's store in the mall for those games and I definitely played them a lot.

Hope you all have a great day!
 
Terry: I agree with your thoughts here, Ever since the hospitals found a way to keep family out of the process, they have pretty much done what they wanted. Important that Marie is doing much better. Hopefully the rehabilitation will help her.

Mike: Happy you are doing better. Take care.

Lee : Love the road paving machine. Nice photos.


Patrick: Out of curiosity, is this a Dell? Reason I ask, is that that the cord wiggling in the jack is the primary issue with hers. Since we are looking to replace her lap top, and want to avoid what appears to be Dell's Achilles Heel.


Curt: I don't know if IB Ken would agree. ;) The GP30 unveiled a lot of new color schemes...the Yellow and Green scheme on the Reading, replacing OD Green, B&O's solid blue "Sunburst" scheme, and PRR's "Keystone" scheme.

Like your photos, you are making a ton of progress on your layout. How's your dad doing?

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Finished project. Something frequently observed at Port Newark, NJ. Have a second project involving either a 53' or 60' flat.

Shout out to the St. Peters mens basketball team, which defeated Murray State to advance to the next round of the NCAA tournament. St. Peters is located in Jersey City. Villanova plays Ohio State this afternoon. NHL Trade Deadline is 3PM tomorrow. Plan on watching the extravaganza on TSN, assuming ESPN+ streams it. Trade deadline day, never quite lives up to the hype.
Thanks for the complement that Car look good and I like those switches.
 
Good morning from warming Wisconsin. The slush disappeared yesterday afternoon when the sun appeared. Today the sun is bright and we should get to the mid 60’s.

The SIL appeared yesterday morning as he ran a ATV through my main walking trails out in the woods. He said they are in great condition except for one trail out in the swamp area. Leading up to the boardwalk over the swamp the stream that fills it went over the banks for the second time since Terry purchased the property at a bankruptcy auction in 2015. That is more of a trail we use with the horses or ATV as it about 2.5 miles from the house. The SIL lives for this 1st 2 rounds of the NCAA basketball games. He and 2 friends are basically staying in the theater watching games. One of his friends because of legal gambling at sports books is now an almost unemployed illegal bookie. His business is way down but still is taking bets. I have issues with this guy, his illegal bet taking and the fact his day time real job is paid by our tax dollars. He and the SIL are childhood friends.

Trains, I now can run almost 60’ on the mainline and did yesterday. I have the spots marked I should add additional feeders to the tracks. I did attach the feeders to the track I already had in place on the buss line. More are needed though.

The paint booth rebuild has continued but the HVAC guy emailed that the fan is out of production he quoted till 9/2022. I gave him the fan specs for the fan I had, but I am sure he will reply it is too small. The price for the next fan I am sure will be higher then the quoted

Have a great day
TomO
 
Good Morning all. Thanks for the likes and complements yesterday I spent a lot of time on the HO Layout yesterday I’m slowly getting it back to order and moving ahead with it. Here’s a few more pics I took. There was another crash on the layout yesterday too this one was uptown a Chevelle pulled out in from of a Ford Falcon. I also was playing around with some Background copies I made many years ago I found in a tub. Enjoy your day
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Good Morning!
With a weak blizzard blowing outside, it's probably a good day to stay in and sip coffee. Where I'm at, we are just on the edge of the system. A little bit south is getting hit a lot harder, like in Edmonton and Calgary. - Later today, I might need to go out and clean the 1" of snow off the walks so it don't turn into skull-fracturing ice.

I'm going to steer clear of the games discussion. I've never played one, and don't intend to start.

I took this crappy photo a few minutes ago:
LayoutConst_03-20-2022.jpg

Started putting up the 2' backboard yesterday.
Then I cut the parts for the final table outside, as I knew a storm was coming in. Those parts are sitting on the floor in the photo. I'll put that table together today. - A swing gate will be installed to the right of the last table. I have a good idea as to how I want to build the swing, so that it is strong and stable.
Obviously, more needs to be done with the rooms lighting over the layout. I want to be able to take good photos.
The layout will not be as big as I wanted it, but, it's big enough for a first timer.

This is all just a skeleton of a layout table. The vision is to make everything look nice, like your walking into another world. There will be no war, politicians or arguments in that world.

For now, I'm able to just sit back and relax and sip my morning coffee. Believe I'll just stare out the window at a passing storm, and collect my thoughts for my next moves.

Have a good one!
 
Afternoon All,

Spent several hours in the train room. I finished the ground cover around the one end of the icehouse complex. I also made a concrete pad for the 2nd freight house. I only did a mid-length expansion joint on the 2 outer sections because you won't be able to see any more than that.

Todd- The picture with the mountain goats is awesome.

Hughie- Looks like good progress.

Gary- 👍.

Steve- You should do a video of a train running through the RL. We love photos and video!

Willie- That's positive progress. Nice lineup of locos yesterday and today. Today's IMHO are the ugliest one's ever except for the BL2.

Joe- Wouldn't that photo count as an early Conrail paint scheme?

Mike- Sorry to hear that. I hope everything turns out OK for you.

Terry- Continued prayers for you and Marie.

Tom- Excellent kitbashing and detailing.

TomO- Safe travels.

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I hope everyone has a good night.
Curt your updates good great very impressive
 
Well,

Not all is lost...Found that my Age of Empires 3 works, so I'm assuming the Warchiefs expansion disc and the Asian Dynasties expansion set for this game will work as well. I'll get them later. Hopefully my Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends will work. I was really fond of Rise of legends as I was a beta tester for Microsoft for this game and got a copy shipped to me just before it was released. I got it a day before the general public could buy it. I played the heck out of it during office hours as the IT department didn't make changes from January 15th until April 30th. I was working as the support for the local office of an accounting firm at the time...lucky me.

Boris: It is in fact a Dell. It has been an issue with Dell laptops forever. I think a lot of it is how and where Dell does their power cords. If they had a 90° bend at the end it would help the issue.
 
Morning all!
32F now, weather guessers say near 60F later.
We are headed to Louisville in about 1/2 hour. Mr Garmin says it is 2008 miles. Probably will be 3 stops for sleep. Don't have to be there until Thursday and am planning on stopping at a couple tourist attractions: Lizard display just after you get into S.Dakota and Silo 5 just after Wall. Gonna try ( again ) for the UP display in Counsel Bluffs as we do not have 70ft yet so that should be easier.
Company has made it so we do not have to do all the preliminary stuff, they are just gonna hand us keys, fuel cards and probably new ID's. I will try and keep y'all posted where we are along with more RR pix.
Later!
 
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