Running Bear's June 2022 Coffee Shop


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Wow, I feel like such an underachiever. I only made it to Star Scout with all these Eagles. My last camping trip was 50 years ago along the Deerfield River just outside of Shelburne Falls, MA.
Astros lost to the Yankees 6-7.
Don’t feel bad. I only made it to 1st class scout, but I did get my railroading merit badge!
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Cool morning here in Virginia.
The U33C project is wrapping up. Just have to switch the leads to the motor and paint the inside of the shell to contain the light from the LEDs and that job is done.
Next loco will be an FP40 Amtrak. It's been sitting in a cigar box now for several years. I did start some work on it about a month ago, but it needed something I don't recall right off. Should become obvious when I start work on it this evening or tomorrow.
There will be a community yard sale this Sat up and down my street. Should be a lot of good trash to sort through. Usually, this stuff is on it's last stop before the trash can.
 
Good morning all! 63 degrees heading for 89. Been a very busy last couple days so I'm looking forward to the weekend. Nothing big to report. I only managed a quick look here yesterday so I admit I didn't get a look at every post in the last couple day.

Patrick: Good luck with the interview!

Hope you all have a great day!
 
Good Morning All. Clear and a rather warm 77° to start the day here. Continued hot, it got to 106° for a while yesterday and the damn pool has gotten up to 91°. Sunday night a cool front blows in and highs will be in the low 90's while overnight lows might drop below 70° for a few days. Slight chance of rain Sunday when the wind shifts.

We're leaving in two hours for our trip to San Antonio for two days to attend our grandson's christening. With bathroom/leg stretch breaks every two hours, and an hour long lunch break in Waco TX, we should comfortably get there before our hotel check in time of 3:00 pm. Tentative plans are to go to Texas Roadhouse for lunch shortly after 11:00. Once we make the first 12 miles at 55 mph to the Interstate, speed limits range from 70 mph to 85 mph all the way to our hotel, mostly at 75+. Texans like fast highways and the Highway Patrol usually cooperates by allowing at least 10 mph over the limit. Although I personally don't go much over 90 mph anyway. There will be traffic for us through Ft Worth, about an hour into the trip but it's smooth sailing after that when using the TX130 bypass around Austin.

Spent a good deal of time yesterday getting ready. I cleared the garden and picked an additional 30# of tomatoes which will be ripening on the kitchen table before they are converted into Marinara sauce Monday. The grocery trek yesterday was short, mostly non-perishables. Prices were stable from the previous week, except pork products. They were down and most of them were on sale. I picked a few things up for the freezer. I asked the meat manager why and was told that many producers were no longer shipping their products to California due to their new "hog housing" regulations. This is causing a surplus everywhere else.

Follow-up visit with the cardiologist went OK, I shouldn't die anytime soon. He's confident enough that my next follow-up in five weeks is with the nurse-practitioner and not him. Many times I would rather visit them instead of the doctor. They aren't as rushed and spend a lot more time explaining things! He did reduce some and eliminated some other medications.

I never made it past First Class in the Boy Scouts. It just wasn't cool any more after age 14.

No time this morning to comment on yesterday's posts, except the gravel operations ones were great. One real and one model. I didn't go to the train shed either since I was picking tomatoes, peppers, beans and squash. Got to shower now and load the car. I may check in from San Antonio if we remember to bring the laptop.

Y'all take care and have a wonderful day.
 
Good morning from the south deck in So. Central Wisconsin. Boy, it is quiet out here this morning. I can hear the trucks on US Hwy 151 about 3 miles away. Very calm and just a few wisps of clouds. 66f degrees now heading to 90.

After yesterday’s road tripping there is nothing planned for today. After a 1 hr 52 minute no highways drive I got my apple pies in a bag at The Elegant Farmer near Greg in Mukwanagp, Wi. Then a decent lunch at Ella’s in Wales. We saw no trains but did drive over some tracks. Back home for a 90 minute nap and headed out at 5:30 to see 2 periods of the grandson’s summer hockey league game just a mile from the house. They ended up winning. Then at 7 after a 35 minute drive saw the granddaughter play in the Dane County Miracle league softball t-ball game for Special Need kids. Overall a very good day and it was great timing for the drive. 90’s today and the weekend knocks down the activity for us.

Terry is just back from the stables, dinner is out tonight!

Enjoy the day
 
Safe travels, Willie!

Apparently, we hit the dew point hard last night... Foggy with a really wet lawn this morning, but it didn't rain last night.

Oldest daughter called last night to tell me the USPS finally delivered my Father's day present, which is a waterfront kit for my riverfront scene I'm planning. Now if I only could find the time to work on it, LOL!

I'll be leaving work early today so I can mow this afternoon/evening. It takes me a good 4 hours to mow, start to finish. Then back into the office all day tomorrow. I need a day in here alone without interruption.
 
Good Morning!
It's only 47F and quite dark outside. If the sun is still burning above that thick cloud cover, I can't see it.
If the weather is going to act up like this, I suppose I'll be able to get the other Sylvan truck model completed, and off the bench. Make room for the oil dealership completion.
Then I'll want to build a 60's motel and a bridge to cross the river. Along with the buildings I've already built, that should give me enough structure's to place and figure out what the layout will look like. Then I can add more track and get it heated-up so I can play with trains.
The oil dealership is the biggest hold-up. I'm not sure yet, where it will fit, and I may need to adjust some track that's already laid down.

Plus, my mind is racing all the time. Scheming and planning. It's telling me to build another crane truck and make room for a contracting company on the layout. This photograph is giving me inspiration:
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To that end, I have another crane truck to build later on. This is a resin kit that I believe will look more natural compared to the other HO scale vehicles. It has smaller wheels than the first crane truck I built.
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I'm thinking oil, forestry, and aggregates for industries on the layout. All of those require cranes at some point. My hope is to create enough industry that I can realistically switch box, tank, flat, and hopper cars. There should be enough room on my 10 x 12 layout for those. Plus a small town set-up. I'm not looking for a circle of track where a train runs consistently. I'd rather have lots of switching.

The wife is taking 11 days holiday next week. Sounds like we're headed into the Rockies to do some fishing. I'll take that time to spend with her. A fella needs to give the wife some time, too. The layout will still be there when we get back.

Well, I suppose that's enough words for one day. Have a good one!
 
Well howdy there internet peeps

It's Troy again.

Not much to report today. Wife is overloaded with work. She's getting that glazed-over look going. Had a bunch of things all drop into the bin at the same time and she's having to heavily prioritize what won't catch fire while she slams through projects. Add in non-helpful people she needs to rely on for answers as she sets up complicated stuff and she's frazzled.

Tonight is the local vocal group's concert here in the neighborhood. They've got an RV with a portable stage that they purchased during Covid social distancing. Problem is, tonight is country music night. I enjoy that genre of music as much as I enjoy root canals, even with the newer, poppier stuff. She'll have to go by herself. Her mother is too unstable to make it in the heat.

She did move her Zuccini over to a different spot on the patio... then read how her lack of growing fruit on the plant may be down to a lack of pollinators. With our wood siding, the HOA/maintenance folks work hard to keep the wood bees under control. I put out a hummy-bird feeder, but those guys aren't helping much.

So, the wife is going to have to start pollinating her veggies. I should look online and see if I can find a bee costume for her to wear when she's out pollinating.

Now that I know what and when and how the plumbing for the wet bar in the basement is getting done, I bit the bullet and did a large amount of the dirty work last night. I had to get under the stairs (with a landing halfway down - so it's a crawl space, not a stoop or bend space.)

I moved the outlet that was behind the cabinets are going, to above the countertop. Added a GFI, and a 2nd outlet.

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the double outlet in the center of the wall is new. The blank plate is something leftover from a previous owner. I'll add an upper cabinet to cover it, eventually. Plan is two tall uppers and a microwave shelf in-between them so I can make popcorn.

The fridge had been plugged into the outlet I moved. So I added a junction box in the under-stairway and split off another outlet to behind the fridge. There was already a split going to the understairs light and outlet (The Cat has a large, electric, rotating pooping palace under the stairs, hence the outlet). Fortunately, neither of those are wet locations, so the GFI could come after them in the circuit.

And, with one trip back under the stairs to reseat a loose ground wire in the box, I got the two happy lights on the circuit tester.

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And the GFI even has a little led night light. Bonus! Not that it will do much, but hey. It's a light.
 
Morning everyone!

Well my sister arrives today. I still have a bit of tidying up to do. I have to work too.

I found another set of covered hoppers by Intermountain/Pacific Western Rail System Special Run Edition in Union Pacific. The Covered Hoppers are 4600 CU FT 3-Bay ACF cars and all of them have the "We will deliver" logo with all different road numbers. I got the complete set of the 1084-3A thru1084-3D. Sets 1 thru 4. 3 cars per set. So that 12 cars in total that I got, Very nice I might add.

I will post later on the RPO thread I am still on the hunt for the 2-bay hoppers as I need those for the aggregate company that includes sand and all types of gravel etc. that I will have on my layout and I am thinking of adding a small cement facility as well.

Here's a sample of the cars sets.....

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Good Morning all!
44F in Libby and clear

You know how you fill up a cart at the store, then empty your wallet of $200 ( or more ). Well, we went to USFoods and filled up the Santa Fe about 3/4 of the way to the roof and emptied about $1200 from the wallet. We now have 0 room in the 3 freezers which was the plan. Decided we need another refer for the big bottle/box stuff as the kitchen one is usually packed. Gawd, what a PITA. Get to cut meat today/tomorra, vacuum bag meat, frozen veggies and stuff like that. Should help with the impending doom. Butter has doubled in price, Milk not quite. $6.90 for strip steak, $2.80 for Pork Tenderloin, $1.90 for Pork ribs and $9.25 for Beef Rib. Note that I do not buy cut meat when doing stuff like this, but whole rib, strip and pork. 20Lb hamburger chubs were $35; got 2. Also got a couple bags of shrimp $15.something for 16 - 20 count, and a $85 bag of scallops about 1 inch square-ish; these need split up and vacuumed. 50Lbs of flour and sugar, 15Lbs of muffin mix. They did not have elbow macaroni so we will watch for that in the local store and buy when it is under $1.00 Lb; usually get a 25Lb box which just fits in a 5 gallon bucket. Then we went to CostCo - more stuff and pretty much got food. Chicken, sausage, bagels and muffins; plus other stuff I don't remember just now. Chicken and sausage is a no brainer, cut the packages apart and toss in the freezer as they are already vacuumed. Wife did buy some sheets and I found a heck of a deal on storage bins. 4 2x8x11 with compartments and see through; $13.

Onward -> we started looking into a generator, batteries and solar panels. BOY the don't give this stuff away. So our though is to take baby steps getting the generator and associated magic widgets the power company requires to get us started. They won't let me install anything connected to the grid, has to be done by a power company certified electrician. Guess that I really don't have a problem with that. After that is done, then everything on my side of that box is mine and I can do what I please. By my head scratching calc's, we need almost 40KW to duplicate what we are currently using. That is gonna change as we have too many call home devices and all of us leave stuff on at any given time. For now, we want to be able to hold up the freezers and refers and will turn down the temp on the hot water. Actually, for summer we could do a roof water heater with PVC - more on that later.

Batteries - Tesla and Generac are the most expensive; both have a 10 year ( 4000 cycle ) warranty and cost more than all of my vehicles combined. With my quick seat of the pants number crunching, we would have a net savings of about 100.00 per month using the lessor power bill ( $220 per month ). ROI probably will never happen or really be out there beyond my sun orbits. I am gonna have to setup a spreadsheet and compare to deep cycle marine batteries to see what shakes out.

One thing I do like is now you can get small inverters. Used to be that a solar array was plugged into one honker inverter that was spendy. The little guys are made for 2 - 5 panels ( power depending ) and cheaper. That in itself lends to easier maintenance as you can take down one array and not the whole nine yards.

I have not looked at PV yet, but know that they are better and cheaper than when I looked 5ish years ago.

Anybody else going down this road?

Later
 
Ken, was talking about batteries, not vehicles. Tesla is the leader of the field right now; Generac is a close 2nd. If petro is outlawed, how are they gonna make said electric vehicles? There is not a bio-plastic .... yet. Also, there is another battery technology - flow battery. So far it is looking better and lithium-ion but that is probably years down the road. Market will either speed it up and bring it to the front, or it will die. Isn't it a wonderful world we live in?
 
We have a small freezer packed and the large cabinet I got when the city redid the breakroom at city hall filled with canned good of all sorts...then we eat takeout!!! Son actually raids our pantry cabinet more than we use the stuff, but we at least have space to store it and our house is small. (ok a bit over 1800 Sq. Ft, but the main level is only a bit of 900.)
Getting ready to leave. Pray for me as I will be in the car with my wife for the next 5-6 hours.
Prayers sent. Getting ready for the Rt. 66 westbound road trip shortly myself...OKC to as far as we can go until we turn around. The piece from Carthage, MO to Oklahoma City is basically a day trip. Have a good time Willie!!
 
Safe travels, Willie!

Apparently, we hit the dew point hard last night... Foggy with a really wet lawn this morning, but it didn't rain last night.

Oldest daughter called last night to tell me the USPS finally delivered my Father's day present, which is a waterfront kit for my riverfront scene I'm planning. Now if I only could find the time to work on it, LOL!

I'll be leaving work early today so I can mow this afternoon/evening. It takes me a good 4 hours to mow, start to finish. Then back into the office all day tomorrow. I need a day in here alone without interruption.

I used to love heading in on Saturday mornings. I could get more done between 6 and 10AM then most full days during the week and it was much more relaxing without anyone around. Working from home never seemed to be as satisfying to me
 
Getting ready to leave. Pray for me as I will be in the car with my wife for the next 5-6 hours.
Love driving with the wife. No, not talking about in the truck. We get to not talk for quite awhile; other than - oh, look at that kinda stuff. She watches the scenery and reads her kindle most of the time. Knows how to drive too ifn I get tired or something. Anyway - prayer sent!
 
I agree, tom. I usually get more done before 9:00AM than I do the rest of the day. Whenever I try to work from home, I end up going out with the dog, or stopping by the fridge out of boredom, just to see what I might want to snack on. But the biggest distraction for me is the view from the window. My home office windows open up to our back yard (which is something like 5 acres), and I find myself watching animals rather than working.

I have a recliner in there where I like to sit with the dog on my lap. He enjoys the view as much as I do.

Edit to add obligatory video of Winston pestering our cat, Oliver.
 
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