Running Bear's December 2022 Coffee Shop


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I'll post an update with some funny and/or interesting pics tomorrow. We got back late (I met the family at a mall where they were shopping after my wanders -- the station they were near was on my way home). We've eaten and I need to shower and go to bed as we have to kind of get up a bit early for our train to Nagasaki. About 5 hours worth of trains (and layovers) spread across three trains. Along bullet train ride and 2 shorter rides.
 
mara plutoni said:
What is this... the worst tasting beer ever made! Since i was in Denver and visited the museum and seen the Coors factory close by, I only drink other trades. Can you buy Grolsch (cars)? No?! Well repaint the car! The odd thing is the above car is from Austria (OBB).
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I think most people are aware Heineken is Dutch, although now brewed under licence in different countries, but as an advertising method painting existing cars regardles of origin was cheaper than buying them.
 
McLeod said:
Good afternoon, folks.

Here in Alberta, I woke up to -38F to see the wife off to work. It's now -20F here after lunch. A warming trend is on the way.

Good thing I went out and checked the truck last night, because the battery was frozen and she wouldn't start. That would have created a tough situation when the wife went to work at 6am. As it is, both the charger and the block-heater were plugged in overnight. The truck started just fine this morning.

I'm glad it's warming up some; I don't like it this cold. The school buses arn't running, machinery breaks down, and I don't go ice-fishing in anything colder than -10. I feel sorry for the people living in the Hendrickson Creek area, which has been hitting -54F two days in a row. That place is only 3hrs away from where I'm sitting.

Sorry, no photos today. Perhaps something nice will be parked down at the CN yard on Christmas day. I always go down there on Christmas day, because there's never another soul in the area. It's a good time to get a good locomotive study in.

Have a great day!
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take care friend.
 
Smudge617 said:
Right, Gentlemen and Ladies.

Tomorrow morning I'm off with my eldest to visit my sister 200 miles away in East Anglia (East Coast), staying for Christmas and New Year, it's not a tradition, I don't have any since my divorce, I do miss the ones we had, more for my kids than anything else.
I'll have my phone so I'll hopefully be able to keep up over the next week.

So I'm going to wish everyone

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year. 🥳 🥳🥳🥳🥳
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Have fun and enjoy your stay
 
santafewillie said:
Good Christmas Eve Morning to All. It's mostly cloudy and 19°, up from 17° two hours ago. NWS has raised it's high temperature prediction for today to 36°. That will be welcome after 48 hours below freezing. So far so good. I only have one small section of cold water pipe that's frozen, maybe 4'; but it's PEX pipe and shouldn't burst. That faucet is tough to drip correctly since it's a "uni-faucet" and it apparently wasn't in the middle to drip hot and cold at the same time. Yep! Despite insulation on the pipes, I still am susceptible to frozen plumbing when temps get into the low teens. No wind chill this morning since there is no wind.
I did venture out last night and picked up a couple of pizzas at a nearby (12 miles) Italian food place. This is not our favorite Italian place in town, however their pizzas are better. Strange that there can be two Italian eateries in a town of only 9,000 people. And both are BYOB! No real plans for today except as directed by my wife. I'll do my usual fire-stoking and bring in wood.
Our #2 daughter and her entire family came by yesterday (with BBQ) to pick up the granddog. We'll be going there tomorrow to celebrate the latter part of Christmas Day for our now new traditional Christmas ritual. SIL prepares a seven rib standing prime rib, along with smashed taters and green beans. My wife fixes Yorkshire Pudding and the gravy, while both daughters fix pies. The other SIL brings the beer and wine and I stay out of the way and take a nap. Earlier we go to daughter #1's home for Christmas brunch consisting of Taylor Ham, waffles with ice cream, and thick-cut bacon; along with mimosa's to drink. One of my SIL's is from Pennsylvania and the other from South Jersey, hence the Taylor Ham which I purchased since it doesn't seem to be available in Dallas!?!? We'll do the gift exchange there before heading a mile away to the other daughter's home. I expect to get model railroad stuff that I picked out on an "Amazon List" that that generation prefers to use.

Train shed is still too cold for anything other than just running trains. The new heater together with the old one keep it warmer than years past, but only about 30° warmer than the outside air. So it was just 45° in there yesterday. I could put a home-sized HVAC unit out there, but I would have to run an upgraded electrical service

No new pictures from the train shed right now, but Curt pointed out a structure in the background of a picture last week, Ramone's Storage & Salvage; a Hydrocal structure from Downtown Deco. I built this structure somewhat recently in October 2021, but some of you may not have seen it.
View attachment 158500
After a few figures (one falling over) and additional details were added.
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The right side wall.
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Troy - I assume that you recovered from the back issue since you didn't mention it this morning. If not, get well soon.
Todd - In this part of Texas, we get treated to this weather every so often, but it doesn't last for long. Except for February 2021. According to those who keep more accurate weather records than me, we expect to see 6 days each winter that the temperature does not rise above freezing, but it is usually in the upper teens and lower 20's. We had one in November and two this month, so we are halfway there statistically. But already this month, I had 12 days in a row where it didn't get below 57°, and it looks like another week like that starting next Wednesday.
Tom O - I'm not to sure that I could ever get PC. I'm an old fashioned person and except around Austin, political correctness is not too prevailing or tolerated in our state.
Good luck to your family stranded in DFW airport. I can assure you that it isn't the airport, as it never closed down. I'm sure that the airlines cannot get their planes in the right place at the right time.
Sorry that I can't make the open house, but I am avoiding putting too many miles on the rental car.
Chris - Have a safe trip to East Anglia.
Swal - Good luck with the jet pump. Tough time of year for that to happen.
Joe - Oh my! Good luck to you with the furnace.

Hey Louis, today would have been Lemmy Kilmister's 77th birthday. I never really realized that he was that much older than me! It is also Dr Fauci's 82nd.
Everybody have a great day, Happy Christmas Eve and Merry Christmas to all who I might not see tomorrow. Peace be with you.
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Thats a very very nice advertisement on the building Willie!
 
charles.smiley@earthlink. said:
I know someone that had a LG air Conditioner fail -- within 1 week. After a number of calls to LG he came to the conclusion that they really don't care.
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They only like to sell. As soon as you pay and walk of, they don't remember you anymore. That said I think the European companies are bad. USA train ppl (manufactories and shops) are really good. Probably they want you be satisfied and come back for more.
 
Good morning, we are enjoying sunshine, a cold wind, and temp is minus 3 F. Supposed to have warm weather moving in, at least nearing 30 F.

I hope everyone had a fine Christmas!

Swal - those pitless units are nice when they work. good luck on the troubleshooting!

My computer is really slow today, yesterday as well all of a sudden it takes forever to upload a youtube. I worked on my LeeTown log truck yesterday, have the pic

log truck r.JPG


I put a driver in there, added the load and dulled down the cab a little with some light wash. Think I will be chaining it as well.
 
mara plutoni said:
What business do you run? You collect the wood, grow them as well? Do you have a heavy sawing machine? Here we can only do smaller trees. When they are too old and too big they are handled in specialized firms. I am a volunteer with the former state forestry (SBB) so just wondering.
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Mara,

Acreage here in the USA is not a difficultly. The further out from a large city the prices go down. 2015 my wife found 1050 acres in a bankruptcy dispute. The property owner had the land taken back by the credit holders.
Many trees on the property and many fall after storms. The trees are cleaned up, cut up, dried and listed for sale. It‘s a sideline not a major business, or rather it has not been a major income provider.
 
mara plutoni said:
Thats the best (not the cheapest though). People think bigger is better. The soil is ruined by those big machines. Working with horses...finally we learn our grandparents were not stupid. I will post a picture from the local newspaper yesterday...funny I read this here as well.
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Tractors with trailers. I don’t believe after a fallen tree is harvested the ground has been damaged
 
Good Morning All. Mostly clear and 31°, not as cold as predicted by a lot, was expecting 20°. Managed to make 50° yesterday, warmer today. No White Christmas here, we almost had one in 1975 with a trace of sleet at my previous home. My gardening records don't go back any further than that. Historically it doesn't snow here in December even though it is historically the cloudiest month or our year, 48% of the time.
You may wonder why I am so cognizant of my weather. Since I heat with nothing but wood, and because I garden 10 months a year, I need to be quite aware of the weather all of the time. Historical trends and current patterns mean quite a lot for my planning. I guess that I could be more normal and purchase more bland veggies at the grocery store and pay out the wazoo for heating costs, but i just choose not to. Both of these ventures give me plenty of needed exercise.
After three days of having to wear socks, I was able to resume my post-retirement habit of bare feet in my shoes yesterday. Even for church locally, they aren't needed. I am basically lazy when it comes to that, and as I age they are harder to put on.

Christmas Day driving was no different yesterday than any other day, I encountered the same old s**t. People racing across four lanes to frantically exit when they were not paying attention (read that as cell phones); 65 mph in the left lane, limit here is 75; and really disconcerting, weaving across the lane lines erratically (spirits?). It's worse when it occurs after darkness falls because they narrowed down the lanes on IH-35 when they rebuilt and added lanes to the existing ROW a couple of years ago. But we survived! No deer tonight!
Speaking of deer, we're still in the rental Bronco SUV. Our car is essentially done except one pressure sensor that's on BO. Maybe I am just not as used to newer cars as I should be, but it is quite unnerving to me for the engine to turn off when I press the brakes all of the way down when stopped at a red light or stop sign! o_O I have figured out how to partly override by only pressing part way, but I don't always remember. The other thing is the automatic bright lights which come on and switch off depending on speed, turn signal usage, oncoming traffic and traffic in front of me in my direction. I haven't figured out if there is a way to switch this feature off. Big Brother is always watching. My neighbors Christmas display spooks it!

No train shed time yesterday, but I plan to get out there today after household chores. No pictures yet of the train stuff that I received yesterday, the gifts are still in the car and the camera is out in the shed. I'll take care of both in a bit.

Louis - I don't think that the results of the Dallas/Washington game will mean anything in the playoff picture, except seeding. It appears that all four teams in the NFC East will make the playoffs with Philly taking the division and the other three becoming wild cards. Interesting that Tampa Bay is currently the NFC South leader with a losing record. Somewhat sad to me that the NFL has expanded the plat offs so much that teams with a losing record can make it in. There seems to be a number of them this year.
Sherrel - glad to read that you and Kate are all right after being sideswiped.
Tom -
CambriaArea51 said:
punched out last night at 12:30 after clearing the roads that drift the worst.
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You have a thankless job.
Mara - I respectfully disagree with you on the taste of Heineken. I do agree on the taste of Coors. Many stores over here carry Grolsch. I am not a fan of their Pilsner, but I do like their lager.

Nothing special about today except it's National Boxing Day in the UK and Canada, and probably down-under. Does one say "Happy Boxing Day" or something else?
Everybody have a great day at the start of the last week of 2022.
 
Good morning. Currently a relatively mild 19° and sunny. Today's anticipated high is 31°, which signals an end to the cold snap. Tomorrow, it will actually rise above freezing. I might actually wait until tomorrow to move recycles from the garage, to the can in the back of the house. (I don't do cold well any more).

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. Our's went well. DInner was traditional, Ham, sweet potatoes with a pecan glaze amd glazed carrots with warm bread. Desert was fresh Canolis. Christmas eve, lunch was shrimp, with cheese and tomatoes and anti pasta, dinner, Lasagna. Also very traditional.
 
Survived another Christmas complete with a wonderful dinner from the Spousal Unit (man can that woman cook). She managed to concoct a couple "new" dishes of a different way to present Green Beans and Creamed Corn to compliment the prime Rib!
There were not very many leftovers - which is a downer for me as she is headed back to Newport to "dog sit" the daughters two bull dogs while they vacation in Hawaii for 8 to 10 days and I will have to fend for myself.
There were 14 folks at the dinner - and interesting is the fact that the oldest and youngest (of our eight) grandsons from the same family were present - one being 17 and the other approaching 2 years of age - each from different fathers - the first of who was, and still is, a real "dick"!

As advertised - the Temp reached an actual 81f yesterday -- today is forecast for 79f
and following are temps back into the 60's during the week.

DAVID - The accident was on the Interstate; idiot swapping lanes and didn't have enough room - cut in front of me. I was doing 75 at the time ... it was an exciting few seconds of wiggling back and forth.

As Patrick says: BBL
 
Good morning modelers and on-lookers. Christmas Day was excellent. Food was great, the gifts are cool and we had fun.

Then there was the Wedding. Both ladies looked stunning, radiant and beautiful. The party was great and smartly we did put a time limit on the celebration. It might still be going…

This is the second wedding we have had on the property since purchase in 2015. We asked then and yesterday that if a picture is taken they share it with all. Digital is so easy to share. There also was an officially designated photographer who towards the last couple hours seemed to be having a really great time. The happy couple head out tomorrow for 10 days on Maui.

This morning just the 10 family will be here for our next day breakfast. Breakfast at 11. Mostly a day of relaxation. The daughter introduced her brother to a former employee now a close friend and the 2 seemed to hit it off. We get to watch and then put to bed the grandkids while the parents, the son and niece head out to dinner at an Italian place this evening.

Enjoy the day
 
Amazing how many people like / wear NB sneakers. My Favorite, although I have moved on to Sketchers Arch Support sneakers, primarily the lace less slip on. Sox, I wear knee high compression sox to control the swelling. Not cool.

Gifts received include an Atlas CN covered hopper, suitable for 1960s international Soda Ash service. I also received a set of headphones (Bluetooth capable), to use when watching Hockey, and Baseball on my PC, or listening to 60s Jazz, Country Swing, or Blue Grass. They will also be useful for Pod Casts. I have a new Washington Capitals Hoodie.and a winter weight dressier shirt. The grand children, sent thoughtful useful gifts.
Probably the greatest gift was that I realize just how sick I was, and if I hadn't gone to the Hospital when I did, I might not have made it to Christmas.

New photos from the family in Watertown, NY, show just how much snow they have there. I'm glad we elected not to drive up as we normally spend Christmas there.
 
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