Running Bear's May 2023 Coffee Shop.


Status
Not open for further replies.
Good evening from Cheeseland. I know Terry used to wrap tomatoes in newspaper, she also used paper plates she punched holes in. She would still loose a couple plants to those critters. But when the tomatoes grew, damn they were good. Now here she just hangs them from the outside deck end boards. She grows grape tomatoes that I feel the skins are too thick and I prefer grape tomatoes. She is growing others that she will turn into tomato sauce. She really can’t wait to have a greenhouse for next season.

The golf today was a joke. The course we were to play on said they didn’t have us listed on the early play list. I really thought when the 2 members there of our group went crazy on the staff in the pro shop that some of us were going to jail. It got real heated. Finally cooler heads prevailed and the 2 members apologized as the tee times are for TOMORROW. I do know as a by-stander who didn’t care if we played there or not, I would have the 2 they dealt with terminated. I have never seen such snobbery, such know it alls from service staff that should know better. Things really changed when the 2 were told the 2 golfers they were dealing with were members there. We left and played the course we played on Monday.

Tomorrow after the car gets a cleaning it will be a day at the bench. The granddaughter tomorrow night has a choir concert at 7:30 moved from 6:30 on Monday because some parents complained about the time being too early. It‘s not like they weren’t given the concert times at semester break in January.

enjoy your evening
 
So the pour was mostly successful. Nice sunny weather. Until it wasn’t.

The inspector came to check the rebar around noon. He was very thorough. Checked all the walls and got into the nitty gritty. Much more than the inspector on the previous level. But this guy was the same guy who did the basement level inspection and he was more thorough this time. It was all good as we passed. He noticed two bars missing in one spot. I had noticed them and mentioned to the guys this morning but they ended up forgetting so the inspector flagged it and we got them in. We passed.

The concrete pump guy came and got a set up and then the concrete started coming. We got everything poured without much trouble. Took about 4-5 hours. We had one corner break but they stopped before it poured out. This was a corner formed from two walls joining and not a factory corner so they are more fragile. If I had braced it we wouldn’t have had an issue as I would have done it differently but it’s ok. They let it set some and then finished carefully filling the last few feet. We’ll have to trim the foam and maybe cut a little of the bulged out concrete out. Was not bad. Better than last time. We didn’t run out but we did under fill one corner by about 2 feet. Not sure how wide. I was not up there. I think the concrete had gotten hung up on some rebar and when they vibrates it it sunk more than expected but by the time they caught it the concrete trucks were cleaned ip and getting ready to leave. So we’ll have to hand mix and dump. They estimated 6-10 bags worth. Better than last time.
We also had to insert J-bolt anchors every 32 inches along the top so the sill plates can be bolted down. We didn’t quite get them all in before the concrete had set too much and it had started a downpour. So we’ll probably have to drill and epoxy in 8-10 of them.

we’ll let it set 6-7 days and the framers will set their roof ridge and other beams and start the roof joists etc.

IMG_2765.jpegIMG_2764.jpegIMG_2762.jpegIMG_2759.jpeg
 
1st train I had was Lionel Ho, rubber band drive back in 1965. I was 4 at the time, but Dad set up a little 4x4 train garden complete with buildings(mostly Faller kits) and Lichen bushes with plastic trees. Every year he would add more stuff til finally in 1970 it grew to a 4x8. Eventually the Lionel rubber band powered FA got to be an operational nightmare, which was replaced with a Varney F unit, then after that died a Tyco Alco Century 430 in CB&Q Chinese red loco. Later on Mantua steamer kits were built, and the FA returned as a dummy unit.
photo roster 013.jpg


Those Lionel FAs are still with us, repowered with Walthers FA1 drives and DCC, there's even a matching B unit !
 
Morning all,

Had a migraine hit as I was driving home last night. I hate those things. Still feeling it some this morning, although I can function. First drive copied, now to check the results...always something.

Not much going on today yet. Always a busy day here as of late.

BBL
 
Good Morning All. Mostly cloudy and 62°, might hit 86° later today. Still looks like mild weather for the rest of the month.

Finished up mowing the estate yesterday. Looks like the next time that I will have to mow will be Tuesday or Wednesday next week. It's just not warm enough to make the Bermuda grow like crazy. I did pick more English Peas from the garden yesterday, probably have to get more Broccoli today.

Today as usual, is the weekly grocery trek day, although we may wait until tomorrow again this week.

Out in the train shed yesterday, I almost finished the small electric substation. I went as far as I could with the fencing and I will fill in later.
IMG_3492.JPG

IMG_3493.JPG

IMG_3494.JPG

I need to go by one in town to see how it's wired and decide if I want to bother adding that detail. I also need to find some silver or gray thread to simulate barbed wire along the tops of the fence posts.

Troy - Bosch tools seem to last forever. In 1984, my company bought a $500K piece of machinery from a company in Austria. Included in the deal was a tool cabinet with $1000's of tools in it, including a Bosch grinder, jigsaw, and reversible drill/screwdriver. They were all 220v tools and our maintenance manager discussed with me that he didn't want to mess with them, as the department didn't need them anyway. I talked to the VP of manufacturing and asked for them, since they were 220v anyway. Maintenance manager said he didn't want them so I got the three tools for free. I also got 150' of extension cord with 220v plugs and receptacles. I simply added a breaker and installed an American outlet and plug and I have been using all three for 39 years. I never pointed out to anyone that there was actually 9-220v outlets located within the electrical cabinets of the machinery that they could have used for the tools! I also got a two week trip to Austria to watch them build the stuff, and my company paid for the passport!
Curt - I could use tulle for the fence as well, but it is the principle of getting it right that I am insisting on them sending more. Wife bought a 100' roll to make my daughter's wedding dress with, so I have a lifetime supply.

In many Christian religions, today is Ascension Thursday.
Everybody have a great day.
 
Good morning from the overcast skies of smoke haze in So. Central Wi. Today should be a decent day with a high of 77 and Terry said there is a wind shift coming this morning that will rid the skies of the haze.

My VW Jetta has its checkup today 20,000 miles today. Express service bring it in and within an hour it’s supposed to be done. Terry’s SUV is what we are driving to Austin also has its check up but they come to her in our driveway. Both are still “free”. Yes, I know it’s buried in the purchase price but it was a feature of the cars.

The group I played golf with yesterday tried to get me to join them today. I’m worn out from 54 holes in 3 days. I remember as a teen through 32 years of age, that was a good walking day of golf. Those days are behind me.

Other then my car and the granddaughter’s choir concert at 7:30pm the day is mine. I shall embrace it.

enjoy the day
 
Good morning gang!

45° with bright sunny skies, expected high of 65° later today.

More benchwork last night, installing more cross braces in the peninsula grid and completing the perimeter. Then lots of risers and wiring holes then spline. Hope to get that done this weekend if I dont run out of spline. Then after that comes the real engineering project, a lift out section that traverses the closet with a 36 inch radius. The closet houses the water treatment system and the well pressure tank. It really only needs to be lifted out once a month when the water filters need changing and the salt hopper refilled.

Just trying to keep up with Troy!

BBL
 
santafewillie said:
I need to go by one in town to see how it's wired and decide if I want to bother adding that detail.
Click to expand...
Willie- Like so many things, it depends on the size of the substation and when it was installed. This size appears to be an industrial sub rated about 4.2 kV. If built in the 50's or 60's, it may have 750 mcm bare copper cable or 2" aluminum tubing. General designs in the late 90's or early 2000 era used bare 1000 mcm ( about 1" dia.) cable. Weather and pollution turned the copper and bronze clamps green. Aluminum cable or tube oxidizes and collects pollutants to turn a medium to grimy gray color in just a few years.
Installations along the coast often have a whitish salt crust on top of conductors and equipment, causing some utilities to wash everything with high pressure hoses.
Yes, they turn off the power first!
Or you can leave the conductors to the imagination.
 
So, I had my new home orientation yesterday afternoon. I was impressed. They had a big notebook with all the contractors names, in case I would need to contact them, a list of all the materials used in the building of the house, all the appliance manuals and much more. Really cool. Spent about an hour and a half learning about everything. This is not my first new home but this is the first time I had all this builder info. Again, I was impressed! Move in day is next Friday. Finally!

Now for all the gamer nerds here.( I’m a 53 year old gaming nerd myself.) I wanted my mailbox number to be different than the standard silver and black numbers. So I went with this. It’s from a video game called Fallout. ( Amazon Prime video is currently making a live action series based on the game.) Many thanks to the Ebayer from San Marcos, California for making them for me.
BTW, yes, I made my wife’s eyes roll again!! 🤣
IMG_6847.jpeg
IMG_6850.jpeg
 
troyphoto said:
Welp... sold off enough game parts that I wasn't going to build in the next five years and decided I'd redirect it into tools.

See, when we moved from our house in Indiana, out to an apt in Los Angeles, I didn't need a lot of tools. Sold off the tried and true Black and Decker saws. Not bad for decent around the house stuff.

But when we moved from LA back to Indiana, I knew I'd need some of the basics again. Headed to Menards (Big Box Hardware and Lumber store in the midwest USA) and bought the cheapo set (aka Tool Shop brand).

BIG MISTAKE

That brand is crap. Both the jig saw and the circular saw drift horribly as they cut. When you make B&D look like pro quallity tools, you know they're crapity crap-crap.

So, after selling off some game-stuff, I got a Bosch Jigsaw at Menards. Hot Digity Darn. Pro quality stuff!

Opened the box... and realized someone in the warehouse had put the big shipping lable over the arse end of the saw on the photo front of the box.


View attachment 168582My decent deal on a quality saw was about to cost me more. This one was cordless, and was saw only. Crap. How much is a charger and battery? $132 AFTER rebate????

Dug the receipt out of the trash, took it back. Dude at the return desk was nice. "Yep... get that a lot. People don't realize we have cordless in one aisle, and corded in the next aisle over..."

Got the one I went after yesterday, but was one aisle off kilter. Should have figured it out... but my brain wasn't working that well. Now I have this one.
View attachment 168583

Going to make some pretty curved cuts tonight when the wife is out for her walk and I can make noise.
Click to expand...

Bosch makes good stuff. I have a Bosch orbital sander and maybe one or two other corded that I've had for a while for my (electric) (bass) guitar making efforts. Several years ago Santa wanted to bring me an 18V Li-ion cordless drill set so I suggested Bosch to ghim, and low and behold, he took my advice 😜

So when we started the house building, I added new Bpsch tools as we needed them. I've added two more drills, an oscillating multi-toolsaw, a "wiggeldy-wacker" ("Sawz-all" type reciprocating saw), a 6 1/2" circular saw, and maybe one or two others I've forgotten. I always gotten them (mostly at Lowes) when there is a promotion going for a free battery or as a set with battery and charger. Their higher end 18V jig saw right now is $159 but you get either a free "starter set" of a battery and charger or two 4.0A batteries.

WIth the house build, I needed some more drills (when we have more people helping take bracing off etc) and they were having a sale last year that was really good on their house brand, the Kobalt 24V stuff. So I ended up with 2 more drills (I wanted one but they had them in a set with battery for under $80 and I needed a couple more batteries so got the set instead as the lone battery was almost that much). I also ended up with a large 7 1/4" circular saw, and a bunch of other stuff I don't need. The circular saw and the drills get used a lot.

Building a house is like a super big "Honey Do" and so an excuse for more than just one new tool...
 
Last edited:
rgeiter said:
So, I had my new home orientation yesterday afternoon. I was impressed. They had a big notebook with all the contractors names, in case I would need to contact them, a list of all the materials used in the building of the house, all the appliance manuals and much more. Really cool. Spent about an hour and a half learning about everything. This is not my first new home but this is the first time I had all this builder info. Again, I was impressed! Move in day is next Friday. Finally!

Now for all the gamer nerds here.( I’m a 53 year old gaming nerd myself.) I wanted my mailbox number to be different than the standard silver and black numbers. So I went with this. It’s from a video game called Fallout. ( Amazon Prime video is currently making a live action series based on the game.) Many thanks to the Ebayer from San Marcos, California for making them for me.
BTW, yes, I made my wife’s eyes roll again!! 🤣View attachment 168620View attachment 168621
Click to expand...
Hopefully you don’t have an HOA
 
TLOC said:
My VW Jetta has its checkup today 20,000 miles today. Express service bring it in and within an hour it’s supposed to be done.
Click to expand...

Good luck with that!

Our VW place used to let me make an appointment for service, and as long as I was not late, they'd get it done quickly. Then they transitioned to this "Express Lane" bring it in without appointment and get it done "Express." Now it seems like it takes a few hours to get a normal service (oil change and checkup) done. They tell me it is "first come first served" and that corporate forced them to change to non-appointments for simple service.

For that and other reasons I've done the last 2 myself. Finding the correct oil is a little hard (ended up getting it on Amazon for a reasonably good price) but the hour it takes me to do it myself beats the 1/2 hour drive each way and then 1-3 hours sitting there waiting.

The stupid thing is that even though my Audi has basically the same 1.4T engine (a 2016 version vs a 2019 version), the oil is not the same spec oil. The filter is of course but not the oil. VW switched around 2018 to a new spec lighter weight oil (I've been told it helps their MPG average) and I didn't notice when I first started filling the VW but then I noticed a label on the car so stopped and had to go find the correct oil locally to finish filling it. Autozone one city over had it (Mobil 1). So I was able to get it filled and the older spec oil shouldn't really hurt it mixed with the newer spec -- the engine is the same and the older spec oil is still a VW spec for the cars that have the engine before they switched and I ended up with a mix that time. Since, I've used the Valvoline oil from Amazon which is the correct spec.

(The older spec is the VW 505.00 which is the 0W40 or 5W40 "European Car" synthetic oil you see at Walmart, any of the car places, etc and is inexpensive, relatively speaking -- the newer spec is VW 508.00 0W20 and almost no one has it locally -- just the one Autozone the next city over had it listed on their website as in stock and all the car places, Walmart, etc don't sell it -- Mobil 1 makes a EPS2 or something like that in that spec but... It is also dyed so they can tell you've used it).
 
TLOC said:
Good morning from the overcast skies of smoke haze in So. Central Wi. Today should be a decent day with a high of 77 and Terry said there is a wind shift coming this morning that will rid the skies of the haze.

My VW Jetta has its checkup today 20,000 miles today. Express service bring it in and within an hour it’s supposed to be done. Terry’s SUV is what we are driving to Austin also has its check up but they come to her in our driveway. Both are still “free”. Yes, I know it’s buried in the purchase price but it was a feature of the cars.

The group I played golf with yesterday tried to get me to join them today. I’m worn out from 54 holes in 3 days. I remember as a teen through 32 years of age, that was a good walking day of golf. Those days are behind me.

Other then my car and the granddaughter’s choir concert at 7:30pm the day is mine. I shall embrace it.

enjoy the day
Click to expand...
My 2022 Tiguan R-Line just had its 10000 mile service. I bought it in November. 😲
 
I've been a Touareg driver for the past 12 years. Back then, the Touareg was the only mid-sized SUV with a decent towing capacity (7,770 lbs). I was tired of getting 13MPG in a pickup truck.

Of course, now trucks get great mileage...
 
Afternoon All,

Didn't sleep very well last night...again. :( This morning I drove Dad to the VA, and of course he got called back 35 minutes late. It's something about this particular clinic that appointments are always late (not normal for the hospital). After getting home I planted 14 trees and prepped 23 more, that still needs foliage. Tonight, I have some local internet group event that MOH is a moderator for. I believe that it's FB based. Anyhoo, I'm not a member and could really care less about it, but since the wife cares, I care.:rolleyes:

Hughie- Can you sketch the basic layout design? None of your pictures or enclosures came through for me.

Smudge- That almost looks like a Thomas engine, minus the face of course.

Willie- Great deal for you.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Welp... I put in pavers in an area between fence and patio. That got the strawberry cage mostly off the patio. Not quite level, but it's an area for planters not for sitting or walking.

And of course, I used the opportunity to work on the model railroad while I was at it... I'll go post over on my thread about it.

pavers.jpg
 
A few days ago, I asked for cleaning suggestions for practice rolling stock to start learning to air brush "stuff". Several people suggested I
read the WEATHERING ROLLING STOCK thread started by TOLC (TomO). Last night, I finished reading the 64 pages of excellent comments and pictures on weathering using many techniques.
One of the first things I learned was that I needed another work space. My daughter is having her wooden fence replaced, so I decided to recycle some boards into shelves for my new painting space.
Before-
20230517_122716.jpg

After some hard work.....
20230518_115903.jpg

I am intending to be careful what I put back on these shelves. Might even work for a couple weeks!
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.



Back
Top